Sensing Spirits: Paranormal Investigation and the Social Construction of Ghosts 9780367030384, 9780429020001

Table of contents :
Cover
Half Title
Series Page
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Table of Contents
Acknowledgements
Introduction
The popularity and marginalization of “the paranormal”
Sociological examinations of the paranormal
The practice of paranormal investigation
Historical and cultural context
Investigation styles
The investigators and the teams
Sensing spirits
Notes
References
Chapter 1 Getting into the spirit
Developing an interest in ghosts and hauntings
Early-life sensory experiences
Early-life extrasensory experiences
Early-life enthusiasm
Later-life interest
Negotiating nomic contexts
Affirming contexts
Permissive contexts
Suppressive contexts
Mixed contexts
Theoretical contributions
References
Chapter 2 Learning the “right” ways to sense spirits
Exploration and transition to a team
Conforming to the knowledge regime
Science-dominant teams
Integrated teams
Sensitive-dominant teams
Learning the “right” investigative techniques
Internalizing the feeling rules
Legitimizing the “paranormal investigator” identity
Theoretical contributions
References
Chapter 3 Discerning evidence of spirits
Interpretive work during paranormal investigations
Somatic work
Discernment work
Techno-empiricist work
The evidentiary value of debunking
Theoretical contributions
References
Chapter 4 Empersoning spirits
Distinguishing features of personhood
Mindedness
Distinctiveness
Co-presence
Empersoning as situated action
Modes of empersoning in paranormal investigation
Typified empersoning
Identified empersoning
Individualized empersoning
Intimate empersoning
Theoretical contributions
Note
References
Chapter 5 Emplotting spirits
Narrative development and the haunting of the Highwayman Inn
Narrative priming
Narrative emergence and contestation
Narrative coalescence
Narrative crystallization
Theoretical contributions
Notes
References
Chapter 6 Making sense of sensing spirits
Paranormal investigation as pioneering science
Paranormal investigation as spiritual practice
Paranormal investigation as human service profession
Theoretical contributions
Note
References
The dead as social objects and actors
References
Methodological appendix
Gaining entrée and making connections
Demographic characteristics of paranormal investigators
Data collection and analysis
Ethical considerations
Notes
References
Index

Citation preview

Sensing Spirits

Based on ethnographic research, this book examines the paranormal investigation subculture in the United States. Presenting interviews with investigators as well as extensive feld observations, it explores their reasons for getting involved, their use of different investigative methods, the interpretive processes by which they individually and collectively “sense” spirits, the ways in which these processes are infuenced by small group power dynamics, and what paranormal investigation ultimately means to those who participate. While focusing on the practices by which investigators “sense” spirits in small groups, the author also situates paranormal investigation within a broader cultural context and attends to how investigators attempt to legitimize their practice despite being marginalized by both science and religion. A fascinating study of ghosts as an inherently social phenomenon, Sensing Spirits will appeal to sociologists with interests in ethnography, interactionism, cultural studies, and subcultures. Marc A. Eaton is Associate Professor of Sociology at Ripon College, USA and the co-editor of The Supernatural in Society, Culture, and History.

Interactionist Currents Series editors: Dennis Waskul, Minnesota State University, USA Simon Gottschalk, University of Nevada Las Vegas, USA

Interactionist Currents publishes contemporary interactionist works of exceptional quality to advance the state of symbolic interactionism. Rather than revisiting classical symbolic interactionist or pragmatist theory, however, this series extends the boundaries of interactionism by examining new empirical topics in subject areas that interactionists have not suffciently examined; systematizing, organizing, and refecting on the state of interactionist knowledge in subfelds both central and novel within interactionist research; connecting interactionism with contemporary intellectual movements; and illustrating the contemporary relevance of interactionism in ways that are interesting, original, and enjoyable to read. Recognizing an honored and widely appreciated theoretical tradition, refecting on its limitations, and opening new opportunities for the articulation of related perspectives and research agendas, this series presents work from across the social sciences that makes explicit use of interactionist ideas and concepts, interactionist research, and interactionist theory—both classical and contemporary. ‘Doing’ Coercion in Male Custodial Settings An Ethnography of Italian Prison Offcers Using Force Luigi Gariglio The Terminal Self Everyday Life in Hypermodern Times Simon Gottschalk The Portable Community Place and Displacement in Bluegrass Festival Life Robert Owen Gardner Sensing Spirits Paranormal Investigation and the Social Construction of Ghosts Marc Eaton For more information about this series, please visit: https://www.routledge .com/Interactionist-Currents/book-series/ASHSER1366

Sensing Spirits Paranormal Investigation and the Social Construction of Ghosts

Marc A. Eaton

First published 2021 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2021 Marc A. Eaton The right of Marc A. Eaton to be identifed as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identifcation and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A catalog record has been requested for this book ISBN: 978-0-367-03038-4 (hbk) ISBN: 978-0-429-02000-1 (ebk) Typeset in Bembo by Deanta Global Publishing Services, Chennai, India

This book is dedicated to my family and to the memories of two loved ones who passed during the research and writing of this book: my maternal grandmother, Anita Fagernes, and my mother, Annette Eaton.

Contents

Acknowledgements Introduction

viii 1

1 Getting into the Spirit

18

2 Learning the “Right” Ways to Sense Spirits

42

3 Discerning Evidence of Spirits

68

4 Empersoning Spirits

90

5 Emplotting Spirits

118

6 Making Sense of Sensing Spirits

141

The Dead as Social Objects and Actors

162

Methodological Appendix

170

Index

183

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Dennis Waskul for his support and encouragement as I have pursued the research that is presented in this book. Without his assurance that this project was worthwhile, it may have never come to fruition. I would also like to thank Patti and Peter Adler and Leslie Irvine for their tutelage in the arts of ethnography and symbolic interaction while I was completing my PhD work at University of Colorado-Boulder. Your patience and guidance allowed me to become confdent in my abilities in these areas and inspired me to continue to use these methodological and theoretical approaches when selecting paranormal investigation as a new topic of interest following graduate school. At Ripon College (my academic home following graduate school), I wish to acknowledge the encouragement and feedback I received from my colleague Jackie Clark early in my data collection and analysis, and likewise give thanks to Mallory Krumrei for undertaking the task of reviewing thousands of paranormal investigation teams’ websites as part of this research. Finally, I would like to thank my wonderful partner, Mary Unger, for her assistance, encouragement, and understanding as I worked on this project over the better part of a decade. I truly could not have done this without you.

Introduction

The central tenet of this book is that ghosts are a social accomplishment, a product of interpretive processes that take place within specifc cultural, idiocultural, and locational contexts, all of which infuence individuals’ perceptions of what “really” occurs in reportedly haunted places. To say that ghosts are a social accomplishment is not to make an ontological claim about the empirical reality or unreality of ghosts. In this book, I stake no claim as to whether ghosts truly exist. My point is that, regardless of any such claims, ghosts become real through social interactions that reinforce individuals’ paranormal beliefs. Furthermore, ghosts have real effects upon the lives of those who believe in them and search for evidence of their existence. The analysis presented here shows how paranormal investigators sense spirits: how they make sense of the idea that ghosts exist; attempt to collect evidence of these entities; relate to them as persons, with human emotions and unique identities; understand them through what I will later explain and illustrate as “emplotment” in haunting narratives; and experience the practice of paranormal investigation as both personally and socially valuable. The sensing of spirits is ultimately the outcome of interpretive interactions taking place in small groups that call themselves “paranormal investigation teams.” However, these micro-sociological processes are informed by many other factors, including stories about the particular place being investigated, historical ghost lore and contemporary representations of ghosts in popular culture, and the dominant discourses of institutionalized science and religion, which have the power to delegitimize truth claims that do not align with their explanations of how the world “really” works. To understand how paranormal investigators sense spirits, it is therefore necessary to place the practice in its broader cultural and historical context, with particular attention on how the very concept of “the paranormal” is a product of the marginalization of certain beliefs and practices. We therefore frst turn to an examination of “the paranormal” as a category of phenomena that is simultaneously popular among the public and rejected by powerful institutions in the contemporary United States. The following section reviews prior sociological examinations of the paranormal. It is followed by descriptions of two precursors to contemporary paranormal investigation, Spiritualism

2

Introduction

and psychical research, and an overview of the paranormal investigation subculture. The introduction concludes with a summary of the contents of each chapter.

The popularity and marginalization of “the paranormal” Two studies conducted over thirty years apart both show that nearly threein-ten Americans say they have been in contact with someone who is dead (Greeley 1975; Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life 2009). Recent studies also report that approximately 40% of American adults believe in ghosts (Alfano 2009; Spiegel 2013) and 52% think that houses can be haunted (Chapman University 2017). For comparison, more Americans believe in ghosts and hauntings than believe in evolution, the “big bang,” or humancaused climate change (Ingraham 2014). Ghosts and hauntings are persistently popular despite the fact that paranormal beliefs are subject to the “politics of truth,” in which the validity of paranormal truth claims is judged in relation to a “system of knowledge and truth production” historically dominated by scientifc and religious discourses (Northcote 2007:6). As theorized by Michel Foucault, discourses consist of the language people use to speak about—and therefore think and feel about—the world around them. Powerful institutions establish a “regime of truth” (Foucault 1980:131), in which only truth claims made by representatives of these institutions are treated as legitimate ways to understand the world. To use Berger and Luckmann’s phrasing, these discourses are institutionalized; that is, they have taken on the quality of objectivity and are “experienced as possessing a reality of their own, a reality that confronts the individual as an external and coercive fact” (1967:58). In the contemporary United States, scientifc and religious (particularly Christian) discourses are institutionalized. As such, defenders of these discourses engage in what Gieryn (1983) calls “boundary-work.” Scientifc and religious institutions identify their beliefs and practices as legitimate and defne competing truth claims as false, dangerous, and even symptomatic of mental illness or demonic infuence. All of these derogatory labels are applied to belief in ghosts. Institutional science defnes belief in ghosts as irrational because the ontological assumptions underlying this belief contradict established theories in biology and physics. According to established biology, human consciousness cannot survive beyond physical death, so it is not possible for fully agentic ghosts—the kind that display communication abilities, memory, emotions, and the full range of what we call personality—to exist. Similarly, the established laws of physics do not allow for the existence of a non-physical substance such as a spirit or for an interstitial realm between life and death in which such spirit entities exist. Claims that contradict these natural laws are categorized as “supernatural.” As Durkheim explains, this category is predicated on a consensus belief that a “natural” world exists and is the only legitimate focus for scientifc investigation:

Introduction

3

To have the idea of the supernatural, it is not enough for us to witness unexpected events; rather, these events must be regarded as impossible—as irreconcilable with an order that seems, rightly or wrongly, to be a necessary part of the nature of things. This notion of a necessary order has been gradually constructed by the natural sciences; it follows that the opposite notion could not have predated them. ([1912]2001:30) With the ascendancy of the natural sciences during the late Enlightenment period, any non-empirically based beliefs—including religious faiths, naturalistic spiritualities, and what we now call paranormal beliefs—were categorized as supernatural and, by defnition, erroneous. Ghost beliefs face a different sort of challenge from institutional religion, which in the United States context is Christian dominated. Since religious faith presumes the existence of spiritual beings, institutional religion cannot marginalize ghost beliefs on the grounds that their underlying supernatural assumptions mark them as illegitimate, in the way that institutional science can. In fact, this shared belief in the existence of spirits makes the demarcation of boundaries between religion and ghost beliefs even more pressing, because the association with a discredited belief threatens religion’s credibility (Bainbridge 2004; Goode 2000; Orenstein 2002). As Baker, Bader, and Mencken (2016) put it, there is a “bounded affnity” between religion and what they refer to as “paranormal” beliefs: they are inherently similar, but cultural boundaries conventionalize religious beliefs and marginalize beliefs in things like ghosts. This type of boundary-work has a long history (see Ben-Yehuda 1985) and continues today in the condemnation of paranormal investigation as occultism. As one representative example, Christian evangelical author Ron Rhodes, demarcates “genuine” spirits from “the false religion of Spiritualism” (Rhodes 2006:74) and states, “When people encounter a genuine spirit, it is not a dead human but rather a demonic spirit intent on deceiving living humans” (2006: 76). From this perspective, the reality of spiritual beings is not in question, but only representatives of religious institutions have the authority to determine what is “really” happening during a spiritual encounter. This dual marginalization by science and religion means that ghost beliefs are essentially caught—like ghosts themselves—between two worlds. This discursive location leads me to prefer to label ghosts and hauntings as paranormal phenomena. This word translates as “para-” (beside) and “normal” (the standard, expected, typical condition)1. I use this term for several reasons. First, the “para” prefx accurately locates ghost beliefs in the interstitial area between the accepted truths of science and religion. Second, this prefx indicates that ghost beliefs coexist with religious beliefs in God and the afterlife, especially among non-dogmatic religious believers (Baker et al. 2016; Eaton 2015). In light of this fact, the “para” prefx also accurately represents ghost beliefs’ location beside religious beliefs in the minds of many Americans. Third, the term “normal” connotes the socially constructed quality of ghosts and hauntings,

4

Introduction

in that what is considered “normal” is based on socially defned “normative” standards of acceptable belief and conduct. The determination of what counts as normal is contingent upon the context in which a phenomenon exists, and therefore defnitions of normalcy are both situated (located in a certain place) and fexible (they can change over time). The socially constructed nature of “normal” helps us understand how belief in ghosts can be considered deviant even though such beliefs are quite common in the United States. Lastly, I refer to paranormal investigators as “paranormal investigators” because that is the label with which most participants self-identify. In fact, as described in Chapter Two, the distinction between this identifer and other terms, such as “ghost hunter,” is important for participants’ defnition of this practice as a legitimate quasi-professional enterprise. Paranormal investigation’s marginalized position affords practitioners an opportunity even as it creates challenges. While marginalization weakens investigators’ claims to scientifc and religious forms of legitimacy, it also weakens the power of institutional science and religion to control who gets to make truth claims about ghosts or which kinds of claims may be perceived as credible. As a result, paranormal investigators have the freedom and responsibility to defne truth for themselves, to determine the “right” ways to investigate and the kinds of knowledge and data that can be treated as “real” evidence of the presence of ghosts. Without institutional constraints upon epistemologies, methodologies, and standards of evidence, paranormal investigation is democratized (Molle and Bader 2013). Individual investigators become the arbiters of truth, and can decide for themselves the degree to which scientifc and religious truth claims and practices will be granted legitimacy within the idiocultural context of their paranormal investigation teams. As such, these teams provide unprecedented insights into the interactive processes and interpretive practices through which paranormal investigators come to a “working consensus” (Goffman 1959) regarding the existence of ghosts.

Sociological examinations of the paranormal One of the earliest modern sociological studies of the paranormal concluded that paranormal beliefs and perceived paranormal experiences were, in fact, normal (in that they were frequently reported by respondents) and that people who reported such things “are not kooks” (Greeley 1975:7). This respectful attitude toward the paranormal was more the exception than the rule among sociologists until recently. In general, earlier work presumed—and implicitly hoped—that paranormal beliefs would decline along with religious beliefs as secularization and scientifc rationality eliminated the cultural and psychological dependence upon such illogical beliefs (e.g., Berger [1969]1990, though see Berger 1999, 2012 for rebuttals). Sociologists approaching the topic from this perspective hypothesized that reported paranormal beliefs would be higher among those who were marginal to society in some way, such as the poor,

Introduction

5

racial and ethnic minorities, and the less educated (Bainbridge 1978; Wuthnow 1976). The underlying assumption of this hypothesis was two-fold: (1) that paranormal beliefs were so stigmatizing in a rational, secularized society that expression of such beliefs would only occur among those who felt they had nothing to lose by revealing their deviant perspective; and (2) that only those who were on the fringes of society would be so gullible as to believe in such foolish things. A more recent body of research has largely rejected the conclusions of marginality theorists and secularization theorists. Rather than predicting (and cheering) the demise of paranormal beliefs, sociologists of religion have endeavored to understand the relationship between these two belief systems. As mentioned above, Baker et al. (2016), for example, note that distinctions between religious and paranormal beliefs are rooted in discursive and institutional boundaries that defne paranormal beliefs as illegitimate rather than any substantive differences in the credibility of their respective truth claims. Other research consistently shows a curvilinear relationship between the two: self-reported paranormal beliefs are lowest among atheists and frequent church attendees, but peak among those who have been exposed to religious teachings but only infrequently attend church (Bader, Baker, and Molle 2012; Baker and Draper 2010; Glendinning 2006; McKinnon 2003; Mencken, Bader, and Kim 2009; Orenstein 2002). Some scholars argue that because of their mutual acceptance of a spiritual explanation of the world, people who were raised in religious contexts but are not currently embedded in church communities may be more open to paranormal beliefs (Goode 2012; Mencken et al. 2009; Orenstein 2002). Others propose that paranormal beliefs may function as a replacement for religious beliefs (Emmons and Sobal 1981; Hergovich, Sçhott, and Arendasy 2005; McKinnon 2003), while a third group suggests that people who are moderately religious may diversify their spiritual portfolios by combining paranormal beliefs with traditional religious beliefs and New Age beliefs (Baker and Draper 2010). Laubach (2004) examines the effects that perceived paranormal experiences have upon belief and participation in organized religions. His analysis focuses on experiences of “psychism,” which he defnes as “perceptions of psychic intrusions into the stream of consciousness that are interpreted by the actor as not originating within the self’s normal information channels” (Laubach 2004:242). In short, Laubach fnds that when an individual has what they perceive to be a psychic or spiritual experience, they privilege this experiential knowledge over religious explanations of spirituality. As a result, they draw away from participation in organized religions and develop a “privatized religion” (Laubach 2004:243) that reinforces the spiritual meanings that they derived from their experience of psychism. Most of this research on paranormal beliefs has been based on quantitative data using large survey samples. While such data has its strengths, it does not adequately allow for the examination of how people make sense of what they believe to be experiences with ghosts. Waskul and Waskul’s (2016) work is

6

Introduction

exceptional in this regard. Using an ethnographic approach and a symbolic interactionist framework, they show (among other things) that people arrive at the belief that they have experienced a ghostly encounter only after experiencing “successive layers of self-doubt” (Waskul and Waskul 2016:41) in which they distrust their sensory perceptions and engage in reality-testing. Further, they argue that, “meaning emerges from the minded ways that people act toward things and the consequences thereof. The reality and truth of ghosts not only can be understood as emerging from these actions [; they are] inseparable from them” (Waskul and Waskul 2016:52; emphasis in original). Other qualitative work focuses more specifcally on paranormal investigation as a sensemaking practice. Through participant observation (Baker and Bader 2014; Molle and Bader 2013) and content analysis (Hill 2017), this research shows that paranormal investigators appeal to scientifc legitimacy by using scientifc-sounding language and an array of electronic devices. Similarly, Hanks (2016a; 2016b) and Childs and Murray (2010) reveal how investigators attempt to make themselves appear scientifc and rational by framing the focus of their investigations as spiritual “energy,” conspicuously displaying self-doubt and humor, and warranting their claims through self-presentations rooted in skepticism. In a series of publications grounded in conversation analysis, Ironside (2016; 2017; 2018) details how paranormal investigators use talk, embodied action, and the empty spaces within reportedly haunted locations to produce collective experiences with what they think may be spiritual entities. Lastly, my own work (Eaton 2015) argues that many participants in paranormal investigation gain or strengthen a spiritual worldview through their engagement with the practice. In other publications, I also highlight some of the same themes explored in this book, such as the scientifc/sensitive divide within the subculture (Eaton 2018) and the construction of narrative accounts of what “really” happened during an investigation (Eaton 2019). This body of research has signifcantly grown over the past decade and holds great promise as a means of better understanding why people believe in ghosts, why and how they get involved in paranormal investigation, the methods they use to search for evidence of ghosts, and what, ultimately, they get out of their participation.

The practice of paranormal investigation In order to contribute to this understanding, this book focuses on the contemporary paranormal investigation subculture in the United States. More specifcally, it examines the meaning making that occurs in symbolic interaction between paranormal investigators, focusing especially on the construction of meaning in the context of paranormal investigations themselves. However, before delving deeper into the specifcs of this subculture and those who participate in it, it is important to frst briefy consider the current trend in its historical and cultural context.

Introduction

7

Historical and cultural context Although the paranormal investigation trend is a product of distinct features of contemporary American culture, it is not without historical precedent. Perhaps the single most important historical precursor is the Spiritualist movement, which began in the mid-nineteenth century in upstate New York. The movement began in 1848 when two young sisters, Kate and Maggie Fox, claimed to be able to communicate with the spirit of a murdered beggar in their home through a series of “spirit-rappings” that sounded like knocks on their bedroom walls (Weisberg 2004). Soon, their older sister, Leah, also claimed to be able to communicate with spirits and took the sisters on a nationwide tour, where they charged for public displays of their abilities.2 Spiritualism quickly caught on because it offered a “rational theology” (Moore 1977:49) that “promised to dissolve the contradictions that had emerged between science and religion by supplying the evidence of immortality that science demanded and that faith desired” (Weisberg 2004:144). Across the United States and Western Europe, numerous purported psychics and mediums began holding private séances, performing extrasensory feats in large theaters, and generally manifesting physical signs or verbal utterances that indicated the presence of spirits. Interest in these exhibitions of afterlife communication peaked in the United States immediately following the Civil War, as families hoped to communicate with their deceased loved ones once again (Moore 1977). As the Spiritualist movement spread, so followed psychical research. This pseudoscientifc investigation of psychics’ and mediums’ claims aimed to discover any methods of deception and trickery used in the manifestation of spiritual presences, with the underlying belief that most (but perhaps not all) such claims could be debunked. In the late nineteenth century, psychical research was formalized into two organizations spanning the Atlantic: the Society for Psychical Research, founded in England in 1882, and the American Society for Psychical Research, founded three years later in the United States. These organizations enjoyed a fair amount of prestige in their respective societies for a period of time, and were founded or led by numerous notable people of the period, including Arthur Conan Doyle, William Crookes, Oliver Lodge, and William James (Blum 2006; Moore 1977). These men worked diligently to discover whether any of the psychics and mediums possessed legitimate extrasensory abilities and were repeatedly disappointed by the recurring evidence of fraud that they revealed. However, James held out hope, famously stating that, “If you wish to upset the law that all crows are black… it is enough if you prove one single crow to be white” (James 1897, cited in Murphy and Ballou 1960:41). This enthusiasm dwindled in the early twentieth century until the Thirties, when psychologist J.B. Rhine formalized psychical research as an experimental investigation of paranormal claims under controlled laboratory conditions and rebranded the feld as “parapsychology” (Moore 1977).

8

Introduction

I highlight these interrelated historical movements because the underlying motives and even some of the methods represented therein are echoed in today’s paranormal investigation subculture. Like the spiritualists3 and psychical researchers, paranormal investigators put stock not in faith but in concrete, observable evidence of life after death. The physical manifestations of spiritual presences sought by both groups are still sought today by paranormal investigators who ask ghosts to “give a sign of your presence” by knocking or tapping, moving objects, appearing in an apparitional form, or producing other physical signs. Paranormal investigation also incorporates (to a greater or lesser degree, depending upon the team) so-called “sensitive impressions,” the thoughts and feelings of investigators who believe they possess extrasensory abilities. As with the tension between spiritualists and psychical researchers, sensitives and more scientifcally oriented investigators do not always agree on the validity of knowledge claims rooted in such abilities. However, like Spiritualism and psychical research, both of which “accepted the hierarchy of knowledge that establishes scientifc proof as the hegemonic criteria of credibility” (Vasconcelos 2008:21), paranormal investigators of all stripes generally agree that proof of the existence of ghosts is of paramount concern. The exact defnition of what constitutes proof is a source of tension within the subculture, however, indicating epistemological disagreement even though investigators share an ontological belief that ghosts are real. In the contemporary cultural context, the search for evidence of life after death is played out each week on television screens all across the country. Goldstein, Grider, and Thomas’ (2007) claim that we are witnessing a “spectral turn” in television is reinforced by Bader, Baker, and Mencken (2017), who found that eighty-seven paranormal television shows premiered between 2011 and 2015 and over one hundred such shows premiered in the decade prior. In particular, the prevalence of reality-style paranormal investigation shows such as Ghost Hunters, Ghost Adventures, and Paranormal State normalizes the practice of paranormal investigation and teaches viewers—some of whom go on to become paranormal investigators— the “right” ways to search for evidence of ghosts. These shows use “the trappings of science” (Brewer 2013), such as technology and scientifc-sounding jargon, to increase viewers’ belief that such paranormal claims are credible (Ramsey, Venette, and Rabalais 2011), and utilize handheld cameras to make viewers feel like they are personally witnessing paranormal events as they unfold on screen (Koven 2007). Collectively, realitystyle paranormal investigation shows establish a body of cultural representations that tell viewers why hauntings occur and how best to capture evidence of such phenomena. Among most of the investigators I interviewed, such television shows catalyzed their movement from general interest in ghosts to participation in paranormal investigation, as discussed in Chapters One and Two.

Investigation styles The paranormal investigation subculture is subdivided into two general investigative styles, the “scientifc” and the “sensitive.”4 I refer to these as “styles”

Introduction

9

because the perception of a particular person or team as scientifc or sensitive is a consequence of certain behaviors and claims being treated by others as evidence of this status. The ways that paranormal investigators act, talk, and respond to one another create the “reality” of being either scientifc or sensitive in one’s approach to searching for ghosts. One’s status as scientifc or sensitive is therefore a performative accomplishment, an outcome of a successful dramaturgical attempt to shape other’s perceptions of oneself (Goffman 1959). This distinction between scientifc and sensitive styles refects a loose division of the two styles within the paranormal investigation subculture, though many teams are characterized by an “epistemological pluralism” (Eaton 2015) that grants both styles some legitimacy. Nonetheless, it is analytically useful to discuss the two as separate and distinct modes of acquiring what practitioners defne as evidence of the presence of ghosts and, therefore, of life after death. Scientifc styles of investigation

Individuals or teams using a scientifc style rely upon technological equipment to record empirical data in a reportedly haunted location in hopes that this data will provide concrete evidence of life after death. It is common for such teams to spend thousands of dollars on equipment. Some of this equipment is designed for other purposes but has been adopted by paranormal investigators. The most common of these types of devices include digital video cameras, still cameras, digital audio recorders, electromagnetic feld (EMF) detectors, radiation detectors, vibration sensors, motion detectors, thermometers, fashlights, and portable weather stations that measure temperature, wind speed, and barometric pressure. Another category of equipment includes devices that have been explicitly designed and marketed for paranormal investigation. Many of these devices actually detect and measure the same things as nonspecialized equipment, but they often incorporate lights and alarms to make awareness of such phenomena easier and more exciting. The K2 meter, for example, is a widely used EMF detector that includes multi-colored lights in an array at the top, turning from green to red as the EMF in an area increases in strength. Another popular device in this category is the Ovilus, a handheld device that measures certain environmental parameters, such as barometric pressure or EMF, and converts these measurements into whole words or phonemes that it speaks in a robotic voice and prints on a small digital screen. The theory behind this device is that spirits can manipulate the environmental conditions so as to “speak” to investigators through the Ovilus. Along with their emphasis on technology, these investigators and teams adopt “scientifcal” (Hill 2017) terminology such as “energy” and “dimensions” when describing paranormal phenomena (see also Molle and Bader 2013). Baker and Bader (2014) contend that such appeals to science refect efforts to rhetorically combat the stigmatizing label of “pseudoscience” applied to paranormal investigation by skeptics. Although most paranormal investigators do not have any formal scientifc training (Molle and Bader 2013), the

10 Introduction

majority express a belief that scientifc methods and technological tools are the most effective means of discerning the truth about ghosts. On the other hand, paranormal investigators express frustration with what they perceive as close-mindedness among institutional scientists. Like the “ufologists” (people who research UFOs and aliens) studied by Cross (2004), paranormal investigators complain about discrimination by scientifc elites and argue that “people should fnd their own answers rather than have scientifc experts tell them what to believe” (25). They believe that their diligent data collection may one day result in a preponderance of evidence that will force institutional science to acknowledge the existence of ghosts. Until that day, they perceive themselves as pioneering scientists who are unfairly marginalized due to institutional science’s arrogant refusal to seriously consider alternative ways of understanding the world. Sensitive styles of investigation

The legitimacy of the sensitive style of paranormal investigation cannot be rooted in the scientifc discourse, as the very existence of extrasensory abilities goes against established scientifc knowledge. Therefore, rather than appealing to scientifc legitimacy, sensitives decry what they see as an overreliance upon technology within the paranormal investigation subculture. These investigators do not entirely reject the use of technological tools but emphasize that these should be supplementary to knowledge attained through personal sensory and extrasensory experiences. They assert that because their knowledge of ghosts is rooted in direct access to the spirit world, their claims should actually be given greater legitimacy than data collected by ostensibly scientifc methods. Their direct knowledge is received through a variety of extrasensory abilities, including (but not limited to): clairvoyance (seeing into the past or seeing spirits); clairaudience (hearing voices or other noises produced by spirits); clairsentience (feeling spirits’ emotions); and psychometry (receiving information about the former owner of an object by handling the object). Such investigators assert “epistemic authority” (Woofftt 2007), claiming that their direct communication with spirits gives them unmediated access to the truth. These truth claims give primacy to experiential and intuitive forms of knowledge, not unlike the discourse of New Age spirituality, which asserts that only personal experience “can provide immediate and uncontaminated access to truth, particularly truth in the sphere of the spiritual/transpersonal” (Partridge 2004:75). Sensitives perceive the world as teeming with spiritual energies, and they engage an eclectic mix of traditional and New Age practices to interact with this energy. Using psychic visualization techniques and relying on objects such as quartz crystals and white sage “smudge sticks,” sensitives protect themselves prior to making contact with spirits and cleanse themselves of unwanted spiritual energies before leaving the site of an alleged haunting. Those who believe themselves to possess such abilities may also attempt to “cross over” spirits, meaning they use their extrasensory abilities to open a

Introduction

11

doorway to the afterlife and convince trapped spirits to move on from this world (see Eaton 2015). Because of the non-material nature of the claims they make and their association with New Age spiritualities, sensitives are often perceived as suspiciously unscientifc by investigators who adhere to the scientifc style of investigation. This relative devaluation of sensitive ways of knowing within the subculture is gendered, with rationality coded as masculine and emotionality coded as feminine. In response, sensitives attempt to validate their knowledge claims in three ways. Female sensitives (thirteen of the seventeen I interviewed) play upon essentialist notions that women are inherently more intuitive and draw upon traditional markers of femininity—such as open expression of emotions—as a way to display “evidence” of their contact with spirits. Male sensitives (four of the seventeen) recognize that their claims to masculine rationality are threatened by their use of an investigative style that prioritizes feelings. They therefore emphasize the knowledge gained through communicating with spirits and downplay their emotional investment in this interaction, as described in Chapter Two. Both female and male sensitives also use technological equipment or pair up with investigators who use such equipment to “prove” their extrasensory claims through devices that are treated as symbolic representations of the scientifc discourse. For example, a sensitive may ask a spirit to cause a localized fuctuation in electromagnetic energy that would set off an alarm on an EMF detector, thus transforming extrasensory knowledge rooted in feelings into empirical evidence grounded in numerical data. All of these strategies refect sensitives’ awareness of the dominance of scientifc styles within the paranormal investigation subculture, a fact that is interrogated in more detail in the following chapters.

The investigators and the teams5 Over the course of fve years of participant observation (particularly during summers), I observed members of eight different paranormal investigation teams while they conducted investigations. I also conducted semi-structured interviews with forty-fve6 paranormal investigators who were members of nineteen different teams (fve of which were teams I observed). Of these forty-fve people, twentysix were female and nineteen were male. My observations of and/or interviews with members of these twenty-two teams indicated that rank-and-fle paranormal investigators were roughly evenly divided between men and women. In terms of leadership, twelve of these teams were led by men (eight of which were science-dominant teams), eight were female-led (fve of which incorporated at least some sensitive styles), and two were jointly led by a man and a woman (both of which incorporated sensitive styles). The racial and ethnic composition of the teams was markedly less diverse than the United States population as a whole: of my forty-fve interviewees, two self-identifed as Hispanic and one self-identifed as Asian, with the remaining forty-two (93% of the interview sample) identifying

12 Introduction

as White. This trend was refected in my participant observation, where I only met one team member across eight teams (of approximately thirty-nine investigators in total) who identifed as non-White Hispanic. The investigators I interviewed ranged in age from twenty-one to seventythree at the time of our interview and averaged forty-two years of age. This even spread of young adults and middle-aged investigators was also apparent in my observations. Although it was diffcult to know the exact economic status of investigators, based on the ubiquity of often-expensive technological tools on these teams, I surmised that most had access to levels of expendable income that was suggestive of at least middle-class standing. Educational credentials ranged from high school diplomas to multiple master’s degrees, but most (thirty-fve, or 78%) had completed at least some college. Forty (89%) were employed in jobs ranging from truck driver to software engineer, with the most common types of employment being legal/business offce work, helping professions (nursing, education, and social work), and sales and customer service. Religious and spiritual trends within the sample of investigators I interviewed were in keeping with the curvilinear relationship reported by other scholars (Bader et al. 2012; Baker and Draper 2010; Mencken et al. 2009). Twenty-seven (60%) espoused broadly Christian views of heaven, hell, and God but did not regularly attend church. The majority of the investigators I interviewed (thirty-eight, or 84%) said that shows like Ghost Hunters, Ghost Adventures, and Paranormal State served as the primary catalyst for their awareness of paranormal investigation and their decision to join or form a team. Those who did not report this either became involved in the practice before the shows began airing or were drawn in through personal connections to investigators. As noted by Hill (2017) and others (Espirito Santo 2019; Molle and Bader 2013), during the frst two decades of the twenty-frst century, there was an explosion of interest in the paranormal and a dramatic increase in amateur paranormal investigation teams in the United States and beyond. It is diffcult to precisely quantify the number of paranormal investigation teams in the United States because teams frequently last only a short period of time and some may not have an online presence. However, based on fgures reported by ParanormalSocieties.com, the most complete online directory of paranormal teams that is available, the number of teams in the United States surged from 131 in July 2008 to nearly 5,000 teams in April 2020 (InternetArchive.com 2008; ParanormalSocieties.com 2020). As explained further in Chapter Two in particular, these teams can be divided into three categories corresponding to the mixture of scientifc and sensitive styles used by their members. Of the twentytwo teams whose members I interviewed and/or observed, thirteen (59%) were dominated by a scientifc style, two (9%) were primarily sensitive in their orientation, and seven (32%) included a mixture of scientifc and sensitive styles.

Sensing spirits The structure of this book walks the reader through paranormal investigators’ experiences and interests prior to getting involved, how they joined or formed

Introduction

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a team and learned to sense spirits, how they discern “evidence” of spirits and interact with spirits during investigations, and, fnally, how they make meaning of the outcomes of these investigations and the practice of paranormal investigation itself. Each chapter is dedicated to illuminating one specifc aspect of the ways in which paranormal investigators sense spirits for themselves, their teams, and their clients. Chapter One examines how personal paranormal experiences, childhood enthusiasm for ghost stories, and ghost-related entertainment media piqued investigators’ interest in ghosts. Chapter Two explores investigators’ socialization into the “knowledge regimes” (Fine 2010) of the teams they join, as well as the skills and feeling rules that are expected on these teams. It concludes with an examination of how team members begin to form a quasi-professional identity as a “paranormal investigator” through this socialization. In Chapter Three, the focus turns to the investigations themselves. This chapter details the discursive and performative techniques by which scientifc and sensitive investigators make evidentiary claims. These claims are rooted in “somatic work” (Vannini, Waskul, and Gottschalk 2012) as well as processes that I refer to as “discernment work” and “techno-empiricist work.” Chapter Four reveals how investigators collaboratively construct disembodied persons through a process I call “empersoning,” and shows how investigators interact with these invisible beings as minded, distinct, and co-present participants in the process of investigating reportedly haunted properties. Using one particularly active investigation as a basis for analysis, Chapter Five shows how paranormal investigators sense spirits through “narrative work” (Gubrium and Holstein 2009), in which they use cultural representations of ghosts and hauntings, place-based stories, and emergent events as interpretive resources for “emplotting” spirits in a collaboratively produced narrative account of what “really” happened during an investigation. Chapter Six shifts attention back to the investigators themselves and considers how these individuals make sense of their participation in paranormal investigation in light of broader questions about the scientifc merits, spiritual signifcance, and human service functions of paranormal investigation. The Conclusion, which is followed by a Methodological Appendix, proposes how this research makes meaningful contributions to sociological understandings of paranormal investigation and symbolic interactionist theory.

Notes 1 My use of the term “paranormal” in this book contrasts with the explication of the distinctions between the meaning of “supernatural” and “paranormal” as described in the Introduction to a book I co-edited with Dennis Waskul in 2018, entitled The Supernatural in Society, Culture, and History. Since the publication of that book, my thinking about the best term to describe ghost beliefs has evolved in light of further thinking about the need to explicate the dual marginalization of such beliefs in a way that adequately captures the rejection of ghost beliefs by both science and religion. Since “nature” is the realm of science, using the term “supernatural” seems to me to direct

14 Introduction

2

3 4 5 6

discussion of the marginalization of ghost beliefs primarily toward how these are rejected by science, leaving the rejection by religion relatively untheorized. In contrast, my use of the term “paranormal” in relation to ghost beliefs orients the discussion toward an examination of how the category of “normal” is socially constructed and how certain beliefs become “normative.” It is in this sense that I have chosen to use the term “paranormal” to describe ghost beliefs throughout this book. In 1888, following years of substance abuse and a falling out with their older sister Leah, Kate and Maggie Fox confessed that their “spirit-rappings” had been a hoax. Before an audience of thousands, they reproduced the popping sounds by manipulating the joints in their toes.Although Maggie recanted her confession in 1889 following pressure from the Spiritualist movement to do so, the Fox sisters’ 1888 confession stood as confrmation of what skeptics long suspected and alleged: that Spiritualism was based on the false claims of a couple of young women and their imitators. I use the upper-case “Spiritualist” to refer to the movement and the lower-case “spiritualist” to identify an individual who was affliated with the movement and claimed to possess extrasensory abilities. For stylistic reasons, I will not use scare quotes around these terms for the remainder of the book.This should not be taken as an indication of my endorsement of investigators’ claims that they are genuinely using scientifc methods or truly possess sensitive abilities. For a more in-depth discussion of this population and my ethnographic approach to studying paranormal investigation, please see the Methodological Appendix. See Methodological Appendix for further details on why I report this fgure as my interview total.

References Alfano, Sean. 2009. “Poll: Majority Believe in Ghosts.” CBS News. Retrieved March 13, 2013 (http://www.cbsnews.com). Bader, Christopher D., Joseph O. Baker, and F. Carson Mencken. 2017. Paranormal America: Ghost Encounters, UFO Sightings, Bigfoot Hunts, and Other Curiosities in Religion and Culture. 2nd ed. New York: New York University Press. Bader, Christopher D., Joseph O. Baker, and Andrea Molle. 2012. “Countervailing Forces: Religiosity and Paranormal Beliefs in Italy.” Journal for the Scientifc Study of Religion 51(4):705–20. Bainbridge, William Sims. 1978. “Chariots of the Gullible.” The Skeptical Inquirer 3:33–48. ––––––. 2004. “After the New Age.” Journal for the Scientifc Study of Religion 43(3):381–94. Baker, Joseph O. and Christopher D. Bader. 2014. “A Social Anthropology of Ghosts in Twenty-First Century America.” Social Compass 61(4):569–93. Baker, Joseph O., Christopher Bader, and F. Carson Mencken. 2016. “A Bounded Affnity Theory of Religion and the Paranormal.” Sociology of Religion 77(4):334–58. Baker, Joseph O. and Scott Draper. 2010. “Diverse Supernatural Portfolios: Certitude, Exclusivity, and the Curvilinear Relationship Between Religiosity and Paranormal Beliefs.” Journal for the Scientifc Study of Religion 49(3):413–24. Ben-Yehuda, Nachman. 1985. Deviance and Moral Boundaries: Witchcraft, the Occult, Science Fiction, Deviant Sciences and Scientists. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Berger, Peter L. 19691990. The Sacred Canopy: Elements of a Sociological Theory of Religion. New York: Anchor Books. ––––––., ed. 1999. The Desecularization of the World: A Global Overview. Grand Rapids, MI: William, B. Eerdmans Publishing Co. ––––––. 2012. “Further Thoughts on Religion and Modernity.” Society 49(4):313–16.

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Berger, Peter L. and Thomas Luckmann. 1967. The Social Construction of Reality: A Treatise in the Sociology of Knowledge. New York: Anchor Books. Blum, Deborah. 2006. Ghost Hunters: William James and the Search for Scientifc Proof of Life after Death. New York: Penguin. Brewer, Paul R. 2013. “The Trappings of Science: Media Messages, Scientifc Authority, and Beliefs About Paranormal Investigators.” Science Communication 35(3):311–33. Chapman University. 2017. “Paranormal America 2017.” Retrieved October 23, 2017 (https://blogs.chapman.edu/wilkinson/2017/10/11/paranormal-america-2017/). Childs, Carrie and Craig D. Murray. 2010. “‘We All Had an Experience in There Together’: A Discursive Psychological Analysis of Collaborative Paranormal Accounts by Paranormal Investigation Team Members.” Qualitative Research in Psychology 7(1):21–33. Cross, Anne. 2004. “The Flexibility of Scientifc Rhetoric: A Case Study of UFO Researchers.” Qualitative Sociology 27(1):3–34. Durkheim, Emile. [1912]2001. The Elementary Forms of Religious Life. New York: Oxford University Press. Eaton, Marc A. 2015. “‘Give Us a Sign of Your Presence’: Paranormal Investigation as a Spiritual Practice.” Sociology of Religion 76(4):389–412. ––––––. 2018. “Paranormal Investigation: The Scientist and the Sensitive.” Pp. 76–94. In: The Supernatural in Society, Culture, and History, edited by D. Waskul and M. Eaton. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press. ––––––. 2019. “Manifesting Spirits: Paranormal Investigation and the Narrative Development of a Haunting.” Journal of Contemporary Ethnography 48(2):155–82. Emmons, Charles F. and Jeff Sobal. 1981. “Paranormal Beliefs: Functional Alternatives to Mainstream Religion?” Review of Religious Research 22(4):301–12. Espirito Santo, Diana. 2019. “Spectral Technologies, Sonic Motility, and the Paranormal in Chile.” Ethnography. doi:10.1177/1466138119872519. Fine, Gary Alan. 2010. “The Sociology of the Local: Action and Its Publics.” Sociological Theory 28(4):355–76. Foucault, Michel. 1980. Power/Knowledge: Selected Interviews and Other Writings, 1972–1977, edited by C. Gordon. New York: Pantheon Books. Gieryn, Thomas F. 1983. “Boundary-Work and the Demarcation of Science from NonScience: Strains and Interests in Professional Ideologies of Scientists.” American Sociological Review 48(6):781–95. Glendinning, Tony. 2006. “Religious Involvement, Conventional Christian, and Unconventional Nonmaterialist Beliefs.” Journal for the Scientifc Study of Religion 45(4):585–95. Goffman, Erving. 1959. The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. New York: Anchor Books. Goldstein, Diane E., Sylvia Ann Grider, and Thomas Jeannie Banks. 2007. Haunting Experiences: Ghosts in Contemporary Folklore. Logan, UT: Utah State University Press. Goode, Erich. 2000. Paranormal Beliefs: A Sociological Introduction. Prospect Heights, IL: Waveland Press. ––––––. 2012. The Paranormal: Who Believes, Why They Believe, and Why It Matters. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books. Greeley, Andrew M. 1975. The Sociology of the Paranormal: A Reconnaissance. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage Publications. Gubrium, Jaber F. and James A. Holstein. 2009. Analyzing Narrative Reality. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications. Hanks, Michele. 2016a. “Redefning Rationality: Paranormal Investigators’ Humour in England.” Ethnos 81(2):262–89.

16 Introduction ––––––. 2016b. “Between Electricity and Spirit: Paranormal Investigation and the Creation of Doubt in England.” American Anthropology 118(4):811–23. Hergovich, Andreas, Reinhard Sçhott, and Martin Arendasy. 2005. “Paranormal Beliefs and Religiosity.” The Journal of Parapsychology 69(2):293–303. Hill, Sharon A. 2017. Scientifcal Americans: The Culture of Amateur Paranormal Researchers. Jefferson, NC: McFarland and Co. Ingraham, Christopher. 2014. “Study: Americans Are as Likely to Believe in Bigfoot as the Big Bang Theory.” The Washington Post, October 24. Retrieved August 21, 2017 (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2014/10/24/study-democrats -are-morelikely-than-republicans-to-believe-in-fortune-telling-astrology-andghosts/?u tm_term=.fb624d5fe0ad). InternetArchive.com. 2008. “Home Page (July 4, 2008).” Retrieved September 18, 2017 (http://web.archive.org/web/20080704071117/http://www.paranormalsocieties.com). Ironside, Rachael J. 2016. “Interactional Dynamics and the Production of Collective Experience: The Case of Paranormal Research Groups.” PhD diss. Department of Sociology, University of York. ––––––. 2017. “Discovering Strange Events in Empty Spaces: The Role of Multimodal Practice and the Interpretation of Paranormal Events.” Journal of Pragmatics 120:88–100. ––––––. 2018. “Feeling Spirits: Sharing Subjective Paranormal Experience through Embodied Talk and Action.” Text and Talk 38(6):705–28. Koven, Michael. 2007. “Most Haunted and the Convergence of Traditional Belief and Popular Television.” Folklore 118(2):183–202. Laubach, Marty. 2004. “The Social Effects of Psychism: Spiritual Experience and the Construction of Privatized Religion.” Sociology of Religion 65(3):239–63. McKinnon, Andrew M. 2003. “The Religious, the Paranormal, and Church Attendance: A Response to Orenstein.” Journal for the Scientifc Study of Religion 42(2):299–303. Mencken, F. Carson, Christopher D. Bader, and Ye Jung Kim. 2009. “Round Trip to Hell in a Flying Saucer: The Relationship between Conventional Christian and Paranormal Beliefs in the United States.” Sociology of Religion 70(1):65–85. Molle, Andrea and Christopher Bader. 2013. “‘Paranormal Science’ from America to Italy: A Case of Cultural Homogenization.” Pp.121–38. In: The Ashgate Research Companion to Paranormal Cultures, edited by O. Jenzen and S.R. Munt. Farnham, UK: Ashgate. Moore, R. Laurence. 1977. In Search of White Crows: Spiritualism, Parapsychology, and American Culture. New York: Oxford University Press. Murphy, Gardner and Robert O. Ballou, eds. 1960. William James on Psychical Research. New York: Viking Press. Northcote, Jeremy. 2007. The Paranormal and the Politics of Truth: A Sociological Account. Charlottesville, VA: Imprint Academic. Orenstein, Alan. 2002. “Religion and Paranormal Belief.” Journal for the Scientifc Study of Religion 41(2):301–11. ParanormalSocieties.com. 2020. “Home Page.” Retrieved April 11, 2020 (http://www .paranormalsocieties.com). Partridge, Christopher. 2004. The Re-Enchantment of the West, Volume 1. London: T&T Clark International. Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life. 2009. Many Americans Mix Multiple Faiths. Washington, DC: Pew Research Center. Ramsey, Matthew C., Steven J. Venette, and Nicole Rabalais. 2011. “The Perceived Paranormal and Source Credibility: The Effects of Narrative Suggestion on Paranormal Belief.” Atlantic Journal of Communication 19(2):79–96.

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Rhodes, Ron. 2006. The Truth Behind Ghosts, Mediums, and Psychic Phenomena. Eugene, OR: Harvest House Publishers. Spiegel, Lee. 2013. “Spooky Number of Americans Believe in Ghosts.” The Huffngton Post. Retrieved March 13, 2013 (http://www.huffngtonpost.com). Vannini, Phillip, Dennis Waskul, and Simon Gottschalk. 2012. The Sense in Self, Society, and Culture: A Sociology of the Senses. New York: Routledge. Vasconcelos, João. 2008. “Homeless Spirits: Modern Spiritualism, Psychical Research and the Anthropology of Religion in the Late Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries.” Pp. 13–37. In: On the Margins of Religion, edited by F. Pine and J. de Pina-Cabral. New York: Berghahn Books. Waskul, Dennis with Michele Waskul. 2016. Ghostly Encounters: The Hauntings of Everyday Life. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press. Weisberg, Barbara. 2004. Talking to the Dead: Kate and Maggie Fox and the Rise of Spiritualism. New York: HarperCollins. Woofftt, Robin. 2007. “Epistemic Authority and Neutrality in the Discourse of Psychic Practitioners: Toward a Naturalistic Parapsychology.” The Journal of Parapsychology 71:69–104. Wuthnow, Robert. 1976. “Astrology and Marginality.” Journal for the Scientifc Study of Religion 15(2):157–68.

1

Getting into the spirit

Sensing spirits is a tricky endeavor. As noted in the introduction, institutionalized science and religion exert their “cultural authority” (Hufford 1995) to delegitimize belief in ghosts and hauntings. Nevertheless, signifcant proportions of people living in ostensibly secularized Western cultures continue to believe in such phenomena. Why do so many people hold such beliefs in the face of delegitimation by powerful institutions? Hufford (1982) proposes two theories that offer differing explanations for the perpetuation of paranormal beliefs. The frst, which he originally proposed as a counterargument to his preferred theory, is known as cultural source theory. According to this explanation, individuals arrive at spiritual explanations for strange experiences because the cultures in which they have been socialized provide models through which these individuals perceive and categorize phenomena. If spiritual explanations are readily available as ways of making sense of personal experiences, individuals will apply these labels to their experiences and perceive the labels as the real explanations for these phenomena. Depending upon one’s cultural context, similar experiences may be defned as a visit by a deceased ancestor, a potential attack by a malevolent spirit, or as a symptom of a medical or psychological disorder. Hufford’s second, preferred explanation for the persistence of spiritual beliefs is the experiential source theory. This theory proposes that certain types of spiritual beliefs—Hufford (1995) calls them “core beliefs”—are rooted not in cultural models that individuals overlay onto their experiences but rather in the experiences themselves, which he refers to as “core experiences.” Building upon his thorough research on the Old Hag phenomenon (also known as sleep paralysis) he argues that in some cases perceptions of a spiritual presence exist independently of any cultural models that provide a cognitive framework for understanding such experiences. Although he stops short of identifying such experiences as true instances of spirit contact, Hufford (1995; 2005) argues that those who report Old Hag/sleep paralysis experiences reach conclusions about the intrinsic spiritual nature of these through reasoned refection. For Hufford, the similarity between reports across different cultural traditions of belief suggests that those who report such incidents are genuinely experiencing something that they perceive as a spiritual encounter, even if they may have

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no cultural tools available to contextualize and normalize the physiological and psychological effects of the encounter. Using Hufford’s two theories as a starting point, this chapter examines the important roles played by both personal experiences that individuals perceived to be paranormal and cultural representations of such paranormal phenomena. Most people who later became paranormal investigators report one or more early-life experiences that they perceived as spiritual at the time. These experiences drove their interest in learning more about ghosts and eventually led to their participation in paranormal investigation. A minority of investigators report no such experiences and state instead that their childhood interest in ghosts was stimulated by paranormal-themed books, games, TV shows, and movies. Therefore, I suggest that both perceived spiritual experiences and cultural infuences are important precursors to individuals’ later involvement in paranormal investigation. Also important is the presence or absence of a supernatural worldview during their formative years. Because religious and paranormal belief systems both presuppose the existence of spiritual entities and claim that spirits can meaningfully interact with the physical world (Baker et al. 2016; Goode 2012; Mencken et al. 2009), it is important to attend to the role religious beliefs played in investigators’ primary socialization. This is particularly true in light of research consistently showing that the family is the most critical agent of religious socialization, especially in childhood and in the context of relatively secular societies such as the United States (Arnett and Jensen 2002; Bengtson et al. 2009; Hunsberger and Brown 1984; Kelley and De Graaf 1997; Myers 1996; Willits and Crider 1989). Data from my interviews suggest that similar processes are at play in the case of paranormal beliefs. With regard to belief in ghosts, some paranormal investigators report that their family affrmed or at least permitted such beliefs, while others recount parents’ and step-parents’ efforts to suppress such beliefs. These patterns of belief overlapped in complex ways with their families’ levels of religiosity. Ultimately, investigators’ abilities to make sense of their belief in ghosts were affected by their families’ broader supernatural worldviews, which included their positions relative to both conventional religious beliefs and paranormal beliefs. This chapter traces the pathways by which paranormal investigators frst became interested in the topic of ghosts and hauntings and explores how these beliefs were nurtured or discouraged within the investigators’ socialization contexts.

Developing an interest in ghosts and hauntings Of my forty-fve interviewees, thirty-eight (84%) trace their interest in ghosts back to some of their earliest memories. Most of these people—twenty-six of the thirty-eight (68%, or 58% of the total interview sample)—became open to the possible existence of spirits following an early-life sensory or extrasensory experience. The remaining twelve had no paranormal experiences prior to getting involved in paranormal investigation, but nonetheless developed an

20 Getting into the spirit

early-life interest as a result of exposure to ghost stories within and beyond their family context.

Early-life sensory experiences Fifteen of the thirty-eight individuals who became interested in ghosts early in life (39%, or 33% of the total sample) describe instances in their childhood in which they became aware of the presence of a spiritual being or energy through one or more of their senses. Many of these experiences were quite startling at the time. A team leader named Jennifer, for example, believes her interest in ghosts is rooted in a frightening childhood experience: I’ve always been interested in the paranormal ‘cause I had an experience as a young child. We lived in a haunted house, an old house in North Carolina. I remember being in the bathroom with my stepmother brushing my hair and the door slammed shut! She couldn’t open the door. She kept screaming. And I remember seeing the window sliding up and down. She fnally got the door open and picked me up and ran downstairs. And I remember hearing my brother scream as we left. The sights, sounds, and panicked feelings associated with this event remain vivid in her retelling decades after the events described. Like Jennifer, Suzanne’s account is suffused with sensory information that affrms, in her mind at least, that she encountered an evil entity in her bedroom when she was ffteen years old: It felt like somebody was beside my bed and had put their hands under the top mattress and just fipped it. And it rolled me right over. It woke me up and I was trying to fgure out what happened. I rolled back over and saw the torso of this fgure in black. So I rolled back over in the direction that my sister was and saw these red glowing eyes over her bed. Talk about scared to death! I threw the covers over my head and I just remember laying there sweating because I was so afraid. Not all experiences were as frightening as those described above. Early-life sensory experiences were often fairly innocuous. One investigator named Kaye used to hear “a lot of footsteps and faucets turning on” in her childhood home, while a sensitive named Christy heard “fve or six footsteps going up the stairs” in front of her one evening at church when she was a young teen. Phil even remembers being visited by a spiritual presence that he believed at the time to be Santa Claus: I was probably four or fve years old. It was Christmas Eve and it’s nighttime, so everybody’s gone to bed. I’m laying there still kinda awake, and I remember hearing somebody come into my room and feeling them sitting

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on my bed. They didn’t touch me in any way, shape, or form; didn’t rub my shoulder or pat me on the head or whatever. And then they just got up and walked out.… In the morning, we’re sitting at the breakfast table and I remember saying to my parents, “Santa Claus came into my room last night and sat on my bed!” And I remember both of my parents looking at each other like, “Did you go into his room?” and looking at me like I was crazy. But somebody of adult size came into my room, sat down on my bed, and then just left (emphasis in original). Whether their encounters were terror-inducing or more mundane, all investigators that report early-life sensory experiences rely upon discrete sensory memories—the sight of a slamming window, a pair of red eyes, or an apparition; the sound of screams and footsteps; the pressure of an adult-sized being sitting on one’s bed—as evidence that they experienced something ghostly during their childhood. Put another way, they sense spirits based on empirical evidence rooted in lived experiences of what they perceive to be a spirit encounter. Like the people who reported Old Hag/sleep paralysis experiences in Hufford’s (1982) study, these individuals reach a spiritual explanation for their experience after rationally assessing the information they gathered through direct sensory observation.

Early-life extrasensory experiences Eleven of the thirty-eight investigators who became interested early in life (29%, or 24% of the sample) claim that they made contact with spirits (willingly or unwillingly) through extrasensory abilities such as “empathy” or “clairsentience” (sensing the emotions of spirits in their vicinity), “clairvoyance” (seeing spirits in their “mind’s eye”), “clairaudience” (hearing the voices of spirits in their minds), “psychometry” (receiving historical or emotional information about a deceased person by making physical contact with an object they once possessed in life) and “mediumship” or “channeling” (voluntarily allowing one’s body to be temporarily inhabited by a spirit). As a sensitive named Norah explains: I’ve been sensitive all my life. When I was a child, I could see things out of the corner of my eye [and] I could feel that I wasn’t alone. Or I’d walk by a mirror and see somebody walking next to me. Likewise, Sabrina recalls that as a child she had a lengthy conversation with a friendly man who turned out to be her deceased great-grandfather: My earliest memory [of psychic abilities] was when I was almost seven [years old]. I was playing in the country at my great-aunt’s house and I saw a man drive up the driveway. He got out of the truck and started walking toward me, and I just knew [that] I knew him. He started talking to me

22 Getting into the spirit

and we talked about our families and everything. Then he says “Goodbye” and gets in his truck and leaves. And the truck even made the gravel road kick up dirt and stuff. And I went into the house and told my grandmother I was talking to a man outside. Of course, she got very scared but I explained to her what the truck looked like, what he looked like, and that he was talking about his sister that lived in the house, which was my greataunt. And my grandmother just broke down bawling and she said, “That’s my father that died when you were a baby!” I had described him to a T. The memories shared by Norah, Sabrina, and others like them are infused with rich sensory details about seeing or otherwise feeling the presence of spiritual entities. The key difference between their stories and those shared by people who reported early-life sensory experiences is that they claim to have acquired this sensory knowledge through extrasensory means. Moreover, each believes that such abilities were present since early childhood, if not birth, and describes their abilities as a “gift,” implying that they had been granted these powers by some higher consciousness or a force external to themselves. Not all sensitives who had early-life extrasensory experiences report that their abilities were present since birth. Julie, for example, describes herself as receiving “vibes” from objects, and claims that when she touches these objects she experiences, “immense sense of sadness, or anger, or happiness.” She dates the development of these psychometric abilities to her early teenage years, “around the time of puberty.” A second sensitive, Fiona, had a near-death experience after accidentally ingesting a bottle of aspirin when she was a child. Following this medical emergency, Fiona was able to sense the presence of spirits as mental “visions.” She recalls no extrasensory experiences prior to this event and believes that her “brain must have been opened up” to the spirit world as a consequence of her brush with death. Regardless of whether they believe their abilities are ascribed or achieved, extrasensory experients present their abilities as an innate part of the way they perceive the world. Like those who experienced the Old Hag/sleep paralysis in Hufford’s (1982) study, these sensitives also frame their awareness of a spiritual presence as immediate, undeniable, and rooted in empirical evidence; in the case of sensitives, this evidence also includes knowledge gained through extrasensory means. For this latter group, the fact that they experience this knowledge as being unmediated by physical sensations—as being something they “just know”— increases their confdence in the reality of their abilities and the reliability of the information they gather through extrasensory means. Because they feel as though they can directly communicate with spirits, those who report early-life extrasensory experiences have no doubt about the existence of ghosts.

Early-life enthusiasm Unlike the investigators described above, twelve of the thirty-eight people (32%, or 27% of the sample) who became interested in ghosts early in life did

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not trace this interest to a sensory or extrasensory encounter with some spiritual entity or energy. Instead, their interest was piqued through exposure at an early age to a combination of family stories, informal self-education, and paranormal-themed entertainment media. In the absence of any direct personal experience with what they perceived as a spiritual presence, these sources functioned as the primary avenue through which these twelve investigators became intrigued by the idea that ghosts may exist. Family ghost stories played an important role in three investigators’ earlylife enthusiasm. Team leader Roger says his interest in the paranormal is rooted in hearing ghost stories told by two generations of his family: Most people that I know in the feld had a paranormal experience [when growing up]. I didn’t. The reason I got involved was really my parents and grandparents telling me ghost stories when I was a youngster. My grandparents on both sides came from Poland and they often told me ethnic stories. They were fascinating to me as a youngster. And then when I was maybe six or seven years old, my parents told me regional stories. Back when my parents were dating in the 1930s and 1940s, my dad used to take my mom on dates. And they would drive past a large Roman Catholic cemetery with a reputation for a hitchhiking ghost. My dad wanted to see for himself if there was actually something to these stories and maybe even have an encounter himself, so he would drive my mom around in the cemetery in the middle of the night in pitch darkness looking for this ghost. Those were the kinds of stories that I grew up with, and as I grew older I wanted to fnd out if these stories were in fact true (emphasis in original). A second team leader, Terri, also identifes as “not one of those that has had this life-altering experience or near-death experience or anything like that.” Rather, like Roger, Terri’s interest is grounded in the intergenerational telling of ghost stories: There was family interest on both my father’s and my mother’s side. When I was a kid, my great-grandparents on Sundays after church would take us on drives around my hometown.… My hometown was right at the edge of a major Civil War battlefeld, so my grandma would point out stuff like, “Oh, this cemetery had all these ghost stories” or “This building was a hospital during the Civil War” and there were all these [ghost] stories associated with it. So there was always that kind of interest when I was growing up. As children, Roger and Terri perceived these stories as credible because they were being recounted by trusted older family members. Though such stories were not suffcient in and of themselves to motivate their later involvement in paranormal investigation, they stimulated curiosity about the existence of

24 Getting into the spirit

ghosts and thereby drove Roger, Terri, and others like them to seek out more information on the topic as they matured. Three other early-life enthusiasts were self-educated on the topic through voracious consumption of books about ghosts and other allegedly paranormal phenomena. One such individual, a team leader named Matthew, fondly recalls that when he was in third grade, “I found this book in the school library that was just called Ghosts. And I read it and thought, ‘Well, that’s really cool,’ you know? It wasn’t very in depth, but I thought it was interesting.” He continued to read books about ghosts and hauntings throughout middle school, including the entire R.L. Stine Goosebumps series. A member of Matthew’s team named Dennis similarly remembers being “obsessed with paranormal and psychic stuff” as a child, to the extent that he “used to go to the library every lunch time and read every book I could fnd” on various paranormal topics, especially ghosts. For Liz, a childhood curiosity about death (which she believes began around age eight) combined with exposure to children’s ghost stories led her to wonder about the possible reality of ghosts. Pursuing this interest, she, “started checking out books on ghosts and read everything I could get my little hands on.” Six of the twelve early-life enthusiasts point to other forms of paranormal-themed entertainment media as the primary source of their interest. The specifc cultural touchstones that stimulated interest vary by generation, but these investigators share a common experience of being inspired by fctional, and ostensibly factual, representations of ghosts and hauntings. One sensitive named Kathleen reports that as a teenager she began “watching all the paranormal shows back then. The fantasy ones like Twilight Zone and Outer Limits but also the more supposedly true-to-life ones, like In Search of with Leonard Nimoy.” One generation younger than Kathleen, Chad points to the 1984 flm Ghostbusters as inspiring his fascination with ghosts. Only seven years old when the flm was released, Chad recalls “making my own cardboard backpack with a photon pack on it” and says that he “wanted to be a ghostbuster” from that day forward. Younger investigators such as Mike, who was born in 1994, name reality-style paranormal investigation shows as their main inspiration. As he states, “I’ve always been interested in wanting to fgure out the unknown, I guess you could say. But as a kid I watched Ghost Adventures and Ghost Hunters, and that got me really interested” in paranormal investigating (emphasis in original). As explained further in the next chapter, these shows are a catalyst for many investigators’ decisions to join or form a team. However, for these six investigators reality-style paranormal investigation shows serve as the original source of their interest in the topic as well. For the twelve investigators who report early-life enthusiasm, the ubiquity of ghost stories in their own families and in various forms of media provide a cultural source for their interest in ghosts. Unlike Hufford’s (1982) Old Hag/ sleep paralysis experients, these investigators had not, at least at the time of initial interest, experienced anything they perceived as paranormal. Nonetheless, their later desire to seek encounters with spirits by engaging in paranormal

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investigation are understandable, at least in part, as a consequence of their early-life exposure to narrative accounts that presented the existence of ghosts as plausible, if not certain.

Later-life interest Although the vast majority of people I interviewed became interested in paranormal investigation early in life, seven of my forty-fve interviewees (16%) developed an interest in adulthood. Two of these people became especially interested after losing a loved one. A twenty-one-year-old investigator named Connor, for example, describes himself as being “absolutely terrifed of the paranormal” as a child. When he was younger, Connor did not read any paranormal-themed books or watch TV shows or movies related to such topics. By the time he graduated high school, though, Connor says he had developed “empathic intuitive” abilities, meaning that he could feel others’ emotions and sense the presence of spirits. This period in his life coincided with the sudden passing of his great-aunt and great-uncle, with whom he had been very close. After this loss (but before his participation in paranormal investigation), Connor spoke to multiple psychics and turned to the Internet in hopes of fnding evidence of the afterlife. These efforts, in combination with his budding sensitive abilities, started him down a path that eventually led to joining a paranormal investigation team. For an investigator named Sarah, the death of her college boyfriend back in the Sixties stimulated a search for evidence of life after death that ultimately led her to paranormal investigation: He didn’t show up on his twenty-frst birthday. He was driving down to see me in San Diego and he and his best friend were killed on their way. This happened in 1964.… And it just struck me one day that I wasn’t interested in the paranormal until after I found out he had been killed. ‘Cause since the late Sixties and early Seventies I’ve read just about everything I can get my hands on about the paranormal—you know, reincarnation, that whole thing. And it dawned on me, “Oh, that’s when I became interested in the paranormal!” (emphasis in original). In these two instances, participation in paranormal investigation refects the culmination of a search for proof of the afterlife in the face of grief. Another pair of investigators report that their interest in ghosts grew out of close relationships with people who testifed to having sensory or extrasensory encounters with spirits. Dave, who is married to Fiona, claims he “could have cared less” about ghosts and other paranormal topics when he was a child. This lack of interest carried over into adulthood until he began dating Fiona. Shortly after they began dating, Dave had multiple experiences that convinced him of the existence of ghosts. In one case, he woke to the feeling of one of his big toes being forcefully tugged three times. As he recalls, “I looked over and said

26 Getting into the spirit

‘What are you doing?’ but she was sound asleep. And there wasn’t nobody else in the room. So I was like ‘Wake up! Wake up! Something’s tugging on my foot!’” Sally’s story is quite different from Dave’s tale, though the end result is the same. During her youth, Sally was “very busy in the church” and “wasn’t attracted to any kind of ghost shows or ghost stories or stuff like that.” As an adult, she became a Catholic nun and dedicated herself to helping parishioners of her church, including assisting them with spiritual questions. One experience in particular piqued Sally’s interest in ghosts: I had people from my church asking me questions about helping them with things they couldn’t see but they could hear in their home. They said, “We think we have ghosts in our house and we really need help.” And I’m like, “What am I supposed to do with that, you know, as a Sister, as a leader in the church?” [laughs] So I called one of our priests and asked him if it would be okay if I looked into it and read up on it. And he said, “Sure, go ahead. Don’t get into any of the dark occult stuff but read up on it, do what you need to do, and look to your faith so you can keep your footing.” So I started reading anything I could read (emphasis in original). Because these paranormal claims originated from trusted members of her congregation, Sally gave them credence and began educating herself using many of the same books and websites mentioned by other investigators. With the approval of her priest, she eventually formed her own paranormal investigation team. Lastly, three investigators became interested after living in a house they believed to be haunted. A team leader named Steven heard footsteps and screaming in his home immediately after moving in, and noticed his dog seemingly following some invisible entity throughout the house: It was almost like he was greeting somebody at the door. He was hopping up and down. He followed him to the stairs and then just kind of watched. Then he turned his head and went up the stairs and stood on the landing. It was like he was watching this person—or thing—go all the way up the stairs and into the bedroom.… So that gave me some sort of validation. It was a slap in the face saying, “Okay, now I have to deal with this. It’s really happening” (emphasis in original). Likewise, Pattie began experiencing strange things shortly after moving into her home. One especially intriguing series of events unfolded in an upstairs bedroom that she was using at the time as a nursery for her infant daughter: My youngest daughter was almost a year old when we bought the house. And I gave her a bottle to have at nighttime, and about a half an hour after she started screaming. So I went upstairs and she didn’t have her bottle. I looked all over but I couldn’t fnd it.… About fve years after that

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incident happened, we decided we were going to start redoing the house. So we go in there [her daughter’s bedroom] with the sledgehammers and we’re breaking up all the stuff. Behind one wall, behind the plaster and the lath board, we found that bottle with [her daughter’s] name on it.… I don’t know how it got behind the wall, but that was something I couldn’t ignore. I was like, “That’s not the kids, that’s not my imagination or the dog or anything. There’s defnitely something going on in this house.” Following this discovery, Pattie researched her home’s history and discovered that a murder-suicide had occurred in the very same bedroom in 1958. As she explains with emphasis, “That’s when I really started thinking, ‘Okay, these stories about ghosts, there’s something to them.’” These strange experiences piqued later-life experients’ interest just as similar events did for early-life experients.

Negotiating nomic contexts An interest in ghosts and hauntings is a necessary motivating factor for getting involved in paranormal investigation, but by itself this interest does not explain investigators’ trajectory into subcultural participation. Investigators also have to reconcile their paranormal beliefs with the beliefs and values they internalized in the primary socialization context of their families. As Berger ([1969]1990:19) theorizes, primary socialization environments, such as families, impose a “meaningful order, or nomos,” upon the world for those who internalize this socialization. An internalized nomos enables individuals to engage in “the subjective ordering of experience,” using the meanings provided by the nomos to categorize and understand their experiences (Berger [1969]1990:21). This nomos is generally fairly robust in the face of threats. Indeed, Berger describes a nomos as “a shield against terror” ([1969]1990:22), in that it represents “a small clearing of lucidity” in “the vast mass of meaninglessness” that lies beyond the boundaries of one’s socially constructed knowledge of the world ([1969]1990:23). Occasionally, a “nomic disruption” (Berger [1969]1990:21) may occur, in which the taken-for-granted nature of socially constructed reality is challenged. In such a situation, the individual (or group) must navigate a period of anomie before defning a new agreed-upon meaningful order in their world. Among the signifcant threats to nomic order identifed by Berger ([1969]1990) are confrontation with the death of loved ones and awareness of the inevitability of one’s own death. Likewise, I argue, instances wherein individuals believe they have witnessed or directly experienced evidence of the existence of a spirit world may also threaten this order, particularly in contexts where the dominant beliefs within a social context do not support such an interpretation. Ultimately, in most cultures questions about death and the possibility of an afterlife are answered through socialization into a religious worldview. It makes sense, therefore, to attend to the role religion played in investigators’

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families. In addition, it is important to consider whether belief in the existence of ghosts and/or the reality of extrasensory perception was accepted or rejected by investigators’ immediate family members. Familial religious beliefs and attitudes toward ghost beliefs weighed particularly heavily upon the 84% of investigators who reported developing an early-life interest in ghosts and spirits. Most of the remaining 16% who developed an interest later in life had lived long enough outside of the confnes of their familial home to develop their own nomos, which often included some form of religious or spiritual beliefs that had been “superimposed” (Berger and Luckmann 1967:140) upon the beliefs they were exposed to during primary socialization. As most of these people were raised in households that permitted belief in ghosts, their interest in the topic later in life caused little friction with their families. If such friction did exist, as adults these experients and enthusiasts had enough autonomy to integrate belief in ghosts into their internalized defnitions of reality. When examining future investigators’ family backgrounds and current beliefs about ghosts and hauntings, I found four trends, which I describe as affrming, permissive, suppressive, and mixed nomic contexts.

Affrming contexts Seventeen of the thirty-eight investigators who developed early-life interest in ghosts (45%, or 38% of total sample) grew up in families in which both parents or guardians affrmed the existence of paranormal phenomena, particularly ghosts. An affrming context is characterized by a shared worldview that accepts the existence of ghosts (and, occasionally, other paranormal entities or abilities) as factually true, thereby normalizing such beliefs. Interestingly, all the investigators who were raised in affrming homes were exposed to one or more religious tradition in their childhoods, and most occasionally attended some form of Christian-based services. Their families treated religious and paranormal beliefs as separate elements of a broader supernatural worldview. This trend resonates with research showing a positive relationship between religious and paranormal beliefs among those who infrequently attend religious services (Bainbridge 2004; Glendinning 2006; McKinnon 2003; Orenstein 2002). Five of the ffteen individuals who had early-life sensory experiences, six of the eleven who had early-life extrasensory experiences, and six of the twelve that developed early-life enthusiasm for the topic make up the seventeen people who were raised in affrming households. In addition, one of the individuals who developed a later-life interest in ghosts reported growing up in a permissive household and holding affrming beliefs as an adult even before pursuing paranormal investigation. This brings the total number of investigators whose interest developed in an affrming nomic context to eighteen (40% of the sample). Ten of the eighteen investigators who were raised in affrming contexts report that religion was important to their families when they were growing up. This group includes three early-life sensory experients, two early-life

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extrasensory experients, and fve early-life enthusiasts. One team leader named Debra was raised Catholic (and remains so) but also grew up hearing family ghost stories and claims that she lived in a haunted house as a child. She recalls that her mother supported her desire to learn more about ghosts despite the family’s strong religious faith: We grew up hearing stories from our Italian grandparents about hauntings back in the “Old Country,” and then the house we lived in in Chicago had paranormal activity which we all experienced as children. So it [believing in ghosts] was something that was very natural for us, as much as it was natural to grow up with our Catholicism and believe that there is life after death.… My mother always encouraged us to study anything that caught our interest, and for me that was everything and anything to do with parapsychology.… Being raised Catholic, my faith was unwavering that when we die we go to another place. And then the parapsychology part came in: can we communicate with that other place? So that’s what tied it all together (emphasis in original). An investigator named Kevin who was raised by his Southern Baptist grandparents became interested in ghosts at age “fve or six” after a porcelain bell that used to belong to his deceased great-grandmother began ringing by itself. Both Kevin and his grandparents witnessed the incident, but he initially felt nervous bringing it up with them because of their strong religious faith. As Kevin explains, “I thought they were going to think negatively of it but they were more open to it. My grandpa talked about how in the Bible it does talk about spirits and stuff.” For investigators like Debra and Kevin, familial religiosity co-existed alongside belief in ghosts. As a result, they were able to easily reconcile their religious and paranormal beliefs, and ultimately came to understand ghosts as simply another facet of their religious worldview. Two early-life extrasensory experients were raised in religious households among family members who believed that extrasensory abilities were part of the family’s genetic heritage. Because of this, they also did not experience a confict between their religious and paranormal beliefs. Norah describes her whole family as “spooky,” meaning that her parents and grandparents believed they could speak to spirits and foresee events that would happen in the near future. Despite being raised “half Catholic and half Southern Baptist” and frequently attending services at both churches in her youth, Norah’s parents treated her sensitive abilities as a taken-for-granted reality. Because she felt affrmed, Norah “started talking about it more and more with my family and they started sharing more stories with me.” As a result of these conversations, Norah says she, “started feeling normal [and] started feeling better” about her belief in ghosts. Similarly, Sabrina’s parents raised her as Episcopalian but also affrmed her belief that she possessed psychic “gifts” such as prophetic dreaming and mediumship. Like Norah, Sabrina claims that in her family “there’s a long line of what people now call psychic mediums. It goes back generations.… And

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somehow, down the [genetic] line, I developed those gifts.” Unlike Debra and Kevin’s experiences, Norah and Sabrina’s families made no attempt to conventionalize extrasensory abilities and paranormal experiences within a Christian understanding of the world. Instead, they treated extrasensory experiences as a result of genetic heredity, thus reframing these as matters of biology rather than belief. By relying on this strategy, they avoided any perception of confict between religious and paranormal beliefs. Five early-life enthusiasts also grew up in homes where religious faith was a core part of their childhood. Roger was raised Roman Catholic and, like many Catholics (see Clarke 2012), he found this faith amenable to his budding interest in ghosts. For example, Roger points out that “Roman Catholics are the demonologists that are called in to remove demons or things of that nature” and recalls that hearing about purgatory as an “in-between” space when he was in Catholic school helped him imagine a spiritual realm that existed between heaven and the physical world. Moreover, Roger’s parents and grandparents both believed in ghosts and hauntings, so he found them to be very accepting of his interests. An investigator named Yvette was raised Baptist and also exposed to Native American spiritual beliefs through her mother, who descended from the Osage tribe. She describes her mother as a “real believer in the ‘spirit world,’ as she called it,” and explains that her mother used to tell her stories about seeing “lost souls” in a cemetery near their home. Yvette’s mother taught her as a child to inquire “What in God’s name do you want?” if a wandering spirit approached her, thus combining a belief in ghosts with the culturally dominant vision of a monotheistic God fgure. Although enthusiasts like Roger and Yvette did not report any personal paranormal experiences in their childhoods, their families treated ghost beliefs as compatible with more traditional religious beliefs. Collectively, the group of investigators who grew up in religious families learned to sense spirits in ways that reduced any confict between institutionalized Christian doctrines and paranormal beliefs. Another seven of the eighteen investigators who grew up in affrming families were exposed to religion in their childhood but not indoctrinated into a particular belief system. Of these, two are early-life sensory experients, four are early-life extrasensory experients, and one is an early-life enthusiast. These seven investigators identify three general patterns that explain why they did not adhere to any particular set of religious beliefs when growing up. In two instances, investigators were raised in a traditional religious context until a divorce resulted in one or both parents drifting from their churches. As a result, religion no longer held great infuence in their families. These investigators became less religiously involved and no longer self-identifed with a religious denomination, a pattern that is consistent with research on the effects of divorce upon adolescents’ and young adults’ religiosity (Denton 2012; Zhai et al. 2007; 2008). As a representative example, an investigator named Robin who developed sensitive abilities in her early adulthood grew up Catholic until age seven, when her parents divorced. As she explains, “after that we didn’t really go to church anymore—we just kind of stopped. The only thing I was

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taught was there’s a God and angels and, you know, a heaven and a hell.” Along with her three siblings, Robin was raised by her mother in a house that they all believed was haunted. During her childhood, Robin and her siblings saw what she describes as a “shadow man” in the hallway outside their bedrooms. Her mother also claimed to sense spirits in the house, including a friendly ghost who prevented the mother from falling off a ladder. In conjunction with the reduced infuence of traditional ways of engaging with spiritual questions following the divorce, the affrming stance taken by Robin’s mother created a family environment in which she could freely report her sensory experiences. A second group of three investigators state that their parents intentionally exposed them to multiple religious and spiritual traditions to encourage exploration of these belief systems. For example, Kaye’s father was a non-practicing Baptist and her mother “leaned more toward not believing in God.” When Kaye was young, her mother “took my brother and I to different churches to see how different people believe and how they practice religion.” During the same period, Kaye’s grandmother said she saw ghosts in the home and her mother claimed to witness household objects moving without being touched. Surrounded by these family stories and not confned to any particular religious worldview, when she heard “a lot of footsteps” and witnessed “faucets turning on” in her childhood home, she— along with her mother and brother—concluded that these phenomena were signs of a ghostly presence. Two investigators grew up in homes where religion was all but absent and at least one parent expressed some belief in paranormal phenomena. For example, a sensitive named Raven was baptized as Roman Catholic, but her parents never expected her to attend church. As a person of Hispanic descent, Raven spent much of her youth around her extended family, where her grandfather “would tell us stories of how he encountered some paranormal experiences himself” while living in Mexico. Her father was “not a religious man” and claimed to have encountered ghosts when he was younger. Similarly, Liz’s parents identifed as Lutheran but “weren’t really all that religious” and did not attend church or encourage Liz to do so. As Liz recalls, when she began reading books about ghosts as a child, her father encouraged her interest and expressed that he was also curious about the possible existence of such entities. Lastly, Pattie (who developed an interest in ghosts later in life) was exposed to religion as a child but drifted away from it after her parents divorced when she was eight years old. Her childhood religious socialization only amounted to a general belief that “you go up to heaven [and] you play the harp all day, or whatever,” as she puts it. Without a frm religious foundation, Pattie found herself trying out different religious and spiritual traditions in her young adulthood. Through this spiritual seeking, Pattie developed her own affrming worldview, explaining, “the more I delved into reincarnation and all that stuff, the more I started developing my own beliefs. So to me, this [belief in spirits] made more sense.” Her path through multiple Western and Eastern religious and spiritual traditions eventually led her to paranormal investigation.

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For investigators raised in affrming households, belief in ghosts was normalized. This normalization was the outcome of two factors. First, when parents and grandparents reported their own spiritual encounters or claimed to possess extrasensory abilities, these authority fgures validated a worldview that legitimized the existence of such paranormal phenomena. Second, these families’ non-doctrinaire approaches to institutionalized religions provided their children enough interpretive fexibility to make sense of ghosts in ways that either integrated such beliefs into a relatively porous religious worldview or maintained separate but compatible sets of beliefs about the nature of spirits. In Pattie’s case, a general lack of religious indoctrination in her youth combined with a period of spiritual seeking in her adulthood enabled her to be open to the existence of ghosts. Particularly for those who had extrasensory experiences as children, being raised in a family environment that affrmed the reality of a spirit world was critical for their acceptance of their abilities. When examined holistically, these trends speak to the importance of parents and grandparents as catalysts for the intergenerational transmission of paranormal beliefs, much like they are for traditional religious beliefs. These data also illuminate the micro-interactional mechanisms and sense making processes through which individuals fnd ways to reconcile their religious beliefs and paranormal beliefs.

Permissive contexts Nine of the thirty-eight investigators who had early-life experiences or developed early-life enthusiasm (24%, or 20% of the total sample) were raised in households where parents or guardians neither openly endorsed nor ridiculed belief in ghosts or extrasensory abilities. Like affrming households, these permissive families were religiously undogmatic and infrequently attended religious services. Among those who grew up in permissive contexts are four of ffteen early-life sensory experients, one early-life extrasensory experient, and four early-life enthusiasts. Interestingly, fve of the seven individuals who became interested in ghosts later in life also grew up in permissive homes. This suggests that their later acceptance of paranormal beliefs was enabled by being raised in an environment where such beliefs were not automatically rejected. These investigators carried this permissive mindset into their adult years, at which time they developed a frm belief in ghosts and subsequently joined a paranormal investigation team. Including the fve people whose beliefs formed later in life, a total of fourteen of the forty-fve (31%) investigators I interviewed developed an interest in ghosts in permissive nomic contexts. Four of the fourteen investigators who were raised in permissive environments report that their families did not regularly attend religious services or integrate such beliefs into their daily lives. Mike, for example, states: my grandparents were very religious but my parents never were, so nothing was ever forced on me. I was always free to believe what I wanted. I

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never really had a religious upbringing but I went to church sometimes just to make my grandparents happy. Although his family did not openly express belief in ghosts, Mike’s parents never tried to dissuade him from watching Ghost Adventures and Ghost Hunters as a kid. Greg similarly recalls, “I had one of those childhoods where if I wanted to go to church, I could go to church. There was no family support, no family religion. It didn’t matter which church I went to.” When he began exploring cemeteries with his friends, Greg’s parents were similarly indifferent to his interest in the macabre. This lack of guidance in regard to spiritual questions afforded Greg the latitude he needed to feel unencumbered in his growing desire to learn more about ghosts by reading books and watching TV shows. The families of eight other investigators practiced religion to some degree but were also open to paranormal beliefs and the existence of extrasensory abilities. Gretchen, who heard disembodied footsteps and witnessed other strange phenomena in her childhood home, was “forced to go” to a Reformed church by her parents until their participation subsided during her teenage years. Despite their inconsistent religiosity, Gretchen’s family was always “into Halloween and scary stuff,” including going on haunted hayrides each Halloween and watching the HBO series Tales from the Crypt together. These activities made Gretchen feel comfortable further exploring her interest in ghosts with little fear that she would be chastised. Similarly, Josh’s parents were “super strict” Catholics when he was a child but “just kind of fazed out” of attending church during his high school years, leading him to drift from his Catholic beliefs in college. Nonetheless, Josh’s exposure to the fundamentals of a Christian worldview helped him make sense of seeing the door to his cabin open and close by itself when he was attending Boy Scout camp one year. Recalling this event, Josh notes: I always thought [that] there’s a heaven and a hell but you can’t see them because they’re on a different plane or dimension.… And this is where my Catholic upbringing came in: [I believed that] for whatever reason, that person [who opened the door] didn’t pass on to the next dimension. Following this experience, Josh began reading more ghost stories and watching horror flms. Like Gretchen, Josh’s parents “truly did not give a rat’s ass” about his newfound interest in ghosts, which gave him the freedom to explore this interest without fear of condemnation or ridicule. One extrasensory experient named Fiona grew up in a permissive household in which her parents intentionally exposed their children to a wide variety of faith traditions. As she explains, “Growing up, my parents decided that we should choose our own path, so they let us experience all denominations. We experienced, Catholic, Baptist, even metaphysical [belief systems]” (emphasis in original). In addition to encouraging religious exploration, Fiona’s parents

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were “very open-minded” when their daughter revealed to them that she believed she was sensitive to spiritual presences. Unlike sensitives who grew up in affrming households, Fiona was not surrounded by family members who shared stories of similar experiences or claimed a genetic heritage of extrasensory perception. Nonetheless, she felt comfortable talking about her experiences because her family was at least open to the possibility of ghosts existing. Two other investigators whose interest in ghosts developed later in life reported a similar pattern of early religious exposure followed by drifting away from religion in their youth or young adulthood. Steven’s case was especially tragic. He attended a Lutheran church with his father until age eight, when his father was struck by a car and fell into an irreversible coma. As Steven recalls, due to the fact that his mother was not religious, “it was about that time—when he was in a coma and in the hospital—that we stopped going to church.” Nearly seven years after the accident, Steven’s father passed away. As a result, Steven “was angry at God” and “thought, ‘Why’d you take him away from me?’ So my religion went away at that point.” As an adult, he did not return to the Lutheran church but did believe that “there’s something after death.” This belief was seemingly confrmed by the presence of disembodied footsteps and voices in a home he purchased with his then-fancée. Though he was not interested in ghosts prior to these experiences, the generalized spiritual worldview that he internalized through early exposure to religion led him to believe that spirits exist and therefore permitted him to entertain the possibility that his house was haunted. Lastly, two investigators who became interested in ghosts as adults were raised in very religious households and still self-identifed as religious. The strong presence of organized religion in their upbringings and in their own lives did not, however, prevent them from being able to pursue their interest in ghosts. Connor attended Catholic church with his family every Sunday growing up and still identifes as a “strong Catholic.” As the youngest investigator I interviewed (twenty-one years old at the time), there was less distance between his childhood socialization and his adult beliefs. In fact, at the time of our interview he was still living at home with his parents. While he describes his father as “very skeptical” about the existence of ghosts, Connor claims that his mother “believes some of it” and was “all for” his decision to join a paranormal investigation team. Though both of his parents are still strongly religious, he notes that they support his interest in ghosts and “always have a lot of questions” about the topic. As a middle-aged woman who had long since left her childhood home, Sally’s story differs in many ways from Connor’s experience. However, they share a common Catholic faith as well as a frm belief in the existence of ghosts. In Sally’s case, her work as a nun led her to the topic of hauntings in the frst place. In turn, her religious beliefs also inform her perspective on ghosts. Although she acknowledges that offcial Catholic teachings do not support the idea that human spirits can haunt the living, she also points out that “in the Catholic church we bluntly come out and say, ‘Look, we know that

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there’s something beyond us [in the spirit world] and you need to respect it’” (emphasis in original). Using her religious training as a means of making sense of ghosts, Sally further explains: If you read scripture, you know Christ rose from the dead. He walked through doors, he scared the crap out of people—we can’t explain that!…. And then he was in the room with all the apostles and Christ looked straight at Thomas and said, “Put your hand in my side.” And he did, and he believed. So Thomas, to me, is like the saint of the paranormal world. Sally’s extensive knowledge of Biblical texts functions as interpretive tools in her approach to the topic of ghosts. Even though the existence of ghosts is not offcially endorsed by the church, Sally relies upon her deep religious faith to make sense of ghosts in ways that are consistent with Christian doctrines. As shown above, the twelve investigators who were raised by permissive parents or guardians felt comfortable pursuing their childhood interests in ghosts because these authority fgures made no effort to delegitimize such beliefs. Similarly, in the two instances (Connor and Sally) where investigators came to this interest as adults, a lack of paranormal naysayers in their immediate social circles frees them from concerns about being ridiculed for believing in ghosts. Moreover, these two individuals possess strong religious faiths that they rely upon to make sense of the existence of ghosts. Overall, investigators who inhabit permissive socialization contexts experience great latitude in their choices of what to believe about ghosts and how to justify these beliefs to themselves and others. This freedom is in stark contrast to those who inhabit suppressive contexts.

Suppressive contexts Surprisingly, eight of the forty-fve investigators (18%) I interviewed grew up in homes where parents or guardians explicitly rejected the existence of ghosts or taught their children that “ghosts” were actually demons in disguise. In the face of this suppression of paranormal beliefs, these investigators engaged in several strategies to create distance between themselves and their families. Of the eight investigators who grew up in such suppressive contexts, three are early-life sensory experients, three more are early-life extrasensory experients, and the fnal two are early-life enthusiasts. Interestingly, none of the investigators who developed a later-life interest in ghosts were raised in a suppressive household or live in such an environment as an adult. For these investigators, it was clear that espousing belief in ghosts or extrasensory abilities would be perceived as anti-Christian by their parents. A sensitive named Kenneth, for example, recalls: I grew up in a very strict Christian fundamentalist household. There was a lot of fear and a lot of guilt due to religion. We was [sic] raised in the Nazarene

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church, and my mother was a very fear-mongering individual. She loved to threaten with fre and brimstone and [use] intimidation. There was never any messages of love or peace or any of that; it was always punishment. Kenneth describes himself as an “empath” and claims that both his brother and he were able to sense spirits in their home at a very young age. Their mother perceived these extrasensory abilities as the work of the devil, but Kenneth continued to pursue his interest in spirits through engagement in Ouija board sessions and other occult activities. As a result, the tension between Kenneth and his mother reached a breaking point. At age seventeen, Kenneth completely rejected his religious socialization and ran away from home, choosing to live on the streets in a distant city rather than suffer through more of his mother’s abuse. During this period, he continued to study the occult through frequent trips to the public library and never wavered in his assertion that he possessed extrasensory abilities. Although he did not run away from home, another sensitive named Jeremiah also experienced rejection by his parents due to his extrasensory abilities. As he explains: Growing up, by the age of sixteen I went through four divorces. And my last stepmother was an absolute religious fanatic. And I was forced—literally, being drug [sic] by my hair—to go to church.… My mother was the same way. She beat me for years because of what I would see or what I would hear. And [she would] say, you know, “You’re the devil’s child.”… My mother and step-mother kind of got together and they were gonna send me to church to get the demons out of me. As a defense against such treatment, Jeremiah recalls that, “for years, I tried to turn it [his abilities] off because I knew what was coming: I’d get beaten for it.” In the face of such harsh treatment, both Kenneth and Jeremiah implemented strategies to avoid further punishment at the hands of their parents: Kenneth left the suppressive environment, and Jeremiah ignored and refused to speak about his abilities until he was able to leave home as an adult. Other investigators who were raised in strongly religious suppressive contexts did not deal with such abusive behaviors. Nonetheless, it was clear to them that belief in ghosts went against their families’ religious beliefs. As Christy recounts: I grew up in a very strict Christian home. My father, especially, was a huge Bible thumper. So when it came to all of this paranormal stuff, whenever I would say “I’m hearing voices” or “I’m hearing this or that,” my parents would just say, “Oh, you’re just imagining things.” After her parents’ dismissal of her extrasensory abilities, Christy decided not to tell them about these experiences when they continued to occur. She also

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rejected her family’s strict religious beliefs and stopped attending church, though at the time of our interview she still identifed as Christian. Like Christy, Chad’s father is the more religious of his two parents, though both parents identify as Catholic and “made [him] believe in God” when he was growing up. At frst, his parents were okay with his childhood interest in ghosts. However, this support waned after Chad rejected his religious upbringing and continued to pursue his interest in ghosts as a young adult. Chad is careful to note that his father “hadn’t disowned me”; instead, Chad’s father frequently ridicules him for believing in ghosts through jokes and gag gifts such as a shirt with “I see dead people” printed on the front. As a result, Chad tries to avoid the topic of ghosts as much as possible around his parents, especially his father. The eight investigators who were raised in suppressive households relied upon three strategies to continue to pursue their interest in the face of their families’ rejection. At the most extreme end of the spectrum, Kenneth’s case illustrates rejection of religious socialization and physical separation from one’s family as a means of maintaining commitment to one’s paranormal beliefs and purported abilities. The explosiveness of this situation was likely heightened by the fact that Kenneth attempted to use his sensitive abilities to contact the dead, which directly opposed his mother’s fundamentalist Christian beliefs. Jeremiah and Christy used a more moderate strategy: rather than turning away from their families, they chose to suppress any mention of extrasensory experiences. Lastly, as illustrated by Chad (and each of the others, to some degree), a third strategy was to reject all or part of one’s religious socialization in order to diminish its infuence over their worldviews, thereby reducing the confict between their religious beliefs and paranormal beliefs. Each of these strategies was largely successful in resolving the familial tension and cognitive dissonance experienced by investigators who were raised in households where belief in ghosts was actively discouraged. The forms of distance that they established provided buffers between themselves and unsupportive family members, and created distinct, compartmentalized cognitive locations wherein most of these investigators retained some semblance of a religious worldview even as they embraced paranormal beliefs.

Mixed contexts Lastly, fve of my forty-fve interview participants (11%) were raised in households where their parents or guardians held conficting beliefs about ghosts. One such investigator, named Barb, swore that she saw her recently deceased uncle standing at the foot of her bed when she was a child. Though she understood that belief in such things went against her family’s Catholic faith, Barb decided to tell her parents about this experience anyway. She remembers that their response refected a surprising openness to the possibility that he had indeed seen an apparition of her uncle. As Barb says, “they thought, ‘Well, it’s possible’…I think my dad was actually a believer, and my mom was like, ‘Well, he did really like coming up here,’ because we had a nice house on a hill in

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the country and it was very pleasant” (emphasis in original). Not experiencing the rejection she had feared, Barb felt free to further her interest in ghosts by checking out books on the topic from her school library. Like Barb, Allison was raised Catholic by both parents. As someone who experienced extrasensory perceptions at a very young age, she was particularly concerned about her parents’ possible reaction to her reports of these experiences. During her early teenage years, for example, Allison recalls repeatedly hearing loud, heavy-booted footsteps coming up the basement stairs and terminating just before the top of the stairway. As she notes, “that’s when I started to see things in my third eye. I’d see shadows crawl across the walls, almost like smoke in my mind’s eye.” Allison claims that her sister, her friends, and even her dog also reacted to these manifestations. Though her parents never admitted to witnessing these phenomena, Allison felt she could “trust and open up to” her parents about her budding extrasensory abilities and concurrent paranormal visions because they had a trusting, loving relationship. Indeed, when she told her parents of these activities, her father believed her and even asked their Catholic priest to bless the home with holy water. Like Barb, Allison’s deepening interest in ghosts was nurtured by her parents’ open-minded attitudes about ghosts despite the fact that they were raising their children in a faith tradition that offcially denied the existence of Earth-bound human spirits. Three other investigators faced a more complicated familial context in which one parent actively rejected the existence of ghosts while the other affrmed or at least permitted belief in such entities. As one example, Kelly was raised Southern Baptist until age fve, when her parents divorced and Kelly was raised by her mother and her Catholic step-father. Kelly’s father remained strongly Southern Baptist until his death and vehemently disapproved of her interest in ghosts. With a slight laugh, Kelly describes her relationship with her father as “a little diffcult” and acknowledges that “he did not like what I was doing” and “wouldn’t even talk to me about it.” To avoid confict, Kelly decided that she would not share any aspect of her paranormal interests with her father. In contrast, her mother “loved everything paranormal: Bigfoot, UFOs, the whole nine yards. She loved it all.” As a result, Kelly went to her mother when, at age fourteen, she witnessed their kitchen cabinets opening and closing on their own. They both agreed that this was likely a sign of the presence of her stepfather, who had recently died. In Kelly’s case and those of the other investigators who had one suppressive parent, the combination of social distance from the disapproving parent and an effort to avoid the topic of ghosts around them reduced the rejection they experienced. Finally, an investigator named Heidi experienced circumstances in both her childhood and adulthood that were unsupportive of her paranormal beliefs. She was raised in a strict Lutheran household where it was clear that the topic of ghosts was off limits. At the time, this caused no confict because her interest in the topic only surfaced after she purchased a haunted home with her husband. After coming to believe that one or more ghosts resided in her home, Heidi began exploring the topic further. Her parents and one sister reacted

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negatively to this newfound interest. As she puts it, “my parents think it’s a bunch of crap” and “my sister tells me all the time that I’m playing with the devil.” To cope with this rejection, Heidi tries to convince her parents that belief in ghosts is not that different from believing in God, saying, “You don’t see God, you don’t see Jesus, but yet you believe in them. Just because you can’t see a ghost does not make it not exist.” Because she enjoys a generally friendly relationship with her sister, Heidi simply dismisses her concerns and tells her “I’ll say hi to the devil for you” before participating in a paranormal investigation. Now married with children, Heidi describes her husband as “very skeptical” about the existence of ghosts, though she notes that “he believes it can happen, but that it doesn’t happen as often as some people may want to believe that it does.” Though Heidi’s husband does not share her belief in ghosts, he nevertheless makes no effort to dissuade her of these beliefs and supports her participation in paranormal investigation because he knows it makes her happy.

Theoretical contributions The pathways into ghost belief presented in this chapter offer limited support for both of Hufford’s (1995) theories about how people arrive at a paranormal interpretation of uncanny experiences. Twenty-six of the forty-fve investigators I interviewed (58%) point to personal sensory or extrasensory experiences as the catalyst for their belief in ghosts. Through physical or mental encounters with something that they perceived as intrinsically spiritual in nature, these investigators came to believe that ghosts do, in fact, exist. Many of these experiences occurred quite early in investigators’ lives, lending some credence to Hufford’s (1995) experiential source theory. However, given the ubiquity of ghost stories in our culture (from family tales to media representations), it is impossible to determine that the individuals who defne their experiences as paranormal reached these conclusions in the absence of any awareness of ghosts as a culturally relevant concept. Moreover, the retrospective nature of this interview data further complicates matters, as it is diffcult to know whether those who labeled these experiences as ghostly encounters did so at the time or only upon reconsidering the events after they had been exposed to family ghost stories or TV and movies featuring ghosts. Indeed, as twelve other investigators note, it was precisely such exposure that drove their childhood interest in ghosts despite never having an experience that they perceived as paranormal. In light of this fact and the likely role that culturally available representations of ghosts played in some experients’ interpretations of their experiences, overall the stories told by the investigators I interviewed more clearly support the cultural source theory outlined in Hufford’s (1995) book. Aside from cultural representations of ghosts, family environments are particularly important in shaping paranormal investigators’ conceptualizations of ghosts and pursuit of their interest in this topic. Collectively, three-quarters

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of the investigators I interviewed (thirty-four of forty-fve, or 76%) were either raised in or lived their adult lives in family environments in which at least one family member was open to the idea that ghosts may actually exist. This support enabled these people to feel comfortable exploring the topic despite the fact that ghost beliefs are marginalized by both institutional science and religion in the United States. In most cases, parents even supported their child’s paranormal interests despite being at least marginally affliated with a religious (in these cases, Christian based) belief system. These fndings build upon a body of research showing that parents and grandparents are the most important agents of religious socialization in the lives of children and adolescents (Bengtson et al. 2009; Hunsberger and Brown 1984; Myers 1996). More specifcally, my data show that immediate family members are also important agents of socialization into paranormal beliefs, and often may encourage (or at least not discourage) such beliefs even as they also expose their children and grandchildren to traditional religious beliefs. This, of course, was not the case for ten investigators who faced suppression early in life and one additional person who dealt with such rejection as an adult. Rather than fnding support in their family contexts, they established various forms of distance from their families, including moving away, avoiding the topic of ghosts, and rejecting their family’s religious beliefs. The complex interrelationships between religious and paranormal beliefs described by paranormal investigators in this chapter add ethnographic nuance to survey-based research on the “bounded affnity” (Baker et al. 2016) exhibited by these two sets of beliefs. According to this perspective, both sets of beliefs are rooted in assertions about reality that require believers to accept the existence of spiritual beings. They differ primarily in that religious beliefs have achieved cultural legitimacy while, by defnition, paranormal beliefs have not. The accounts presented in this chapter show that religious and paranormal beliefs often co-exist in the families of those who later become paranormal investigators. In several cases, investigators actually rely upon religious teachings as a basis for explaining the existence of ghosts, while in other cases investigators treat these two sets of beliefs as distinct spiritual worldviews. Those who found that their family’s religiosity prevented such a peaceful co-existence of belief systems chose to distance themselves from religion and even remove themselves from these suppressive familial contexts. Overall, the experiences of the paranormal investigators I interviewed help us better understand how those who believe in ghosts negotiate nomic contexts that offer varying levels of support for these marginalized beliefs. The following chapter picks up where this one leaves off, tracing investigators’ paths into paranormal investigation and exploring their socialization into the “right” ways of investigating.

References Arnett, Jeffrey Jensen and Lene Arnett Jensen. 2002. “A Congregation of One: Individualized Religious Beliefs among Emerging Adults.” Journal of Adolescent Research 17(5):451–67.

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Bainbridge, William Sims. 2004. “After the New Age.” Journal for the Scientifc Study of Religion 43(3):381–94. Baker, Joseph O., Christopher Bader, and F. Carson Mencken. 2016. “A Bounded Affnity Theory of Religion and the Paranormal.” Sociology of Religion 77(4):334–58. Bengtson, Vern L., Casey E. Copen, Norella M. Putney, and Merril Silverstein. 2009. “A Longitudinal Study of the Intergenerational Transmission of Religion.” International Sociology 24(3):325–45. Berger, Peter L. [1969]1990. The Sacred Canopy: Elements of a Sociological Theory of Religion. New York: Anchor Books. Berger, Peter L. and Thomas Luckmann. 1967. The Social Construction of Reality: A Treatise in the Sociology of Knowledge. New York: Anchor Books. Clarke, Roger. 2012. A Natural History of Ghosts: 500 Years of Hunting for Proof. New York: Penguin. Denton, Melinda Lundquist. 2012. “Family Structure, Family Disruption, and Profles of Adolescent Religiosity.” Journal for the Scientifc Study of Religion 51(1):42–64. Glendinning, Tony. 2006. “Religious Involvement, Conventional Christian, and Unconventional Nonmaterialist Beliefs.” Journal for the Scientifc Study of Religion 45(4):585–95. Goode, Erich. 2012. The Paranormal: Who Believes, Why They Believe, and Why It Matters. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books. Hufford, David J. 1982. The Terror That Comes in the Night: An Experience-Centered Study of Supernatural Assault Traditions. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press. ––––––. 1995. “Beings without Bodies: An Experience-Centered Theory of the Belief in Spirits.” Pp. 11–45. In: Out of the Ordinary: Folklore and the Supernatural, edited by B. Walker. Logan, UT: Utah State University Press. ––––––. 2005. “Sleep Paralysis as Spiritual Experience.” Transcultural Psychiatry 42(11):11–45. Hunsberger, Bruce and L. B. Brown. 1984. “Religious Socialization, Apostasy, and the Impact of Family Background.” Journal for the Scientifc Study of Religion 23(3):239–51. Kelley, Jonathan and Nan Dirk De Graaf. 1997. “National Context, Parental Socialization, and Religious Belief: Results from 15 Nations.” American Sociological Review 62(4):639–59. McKinnon, Andrew M. 2003. “The Religious, the Paranormal, and Church Attendance: A Response to Orenstein.” Journal for the Scientifc Study of Religion 42(2):299–303. Mencken, F. Carson, Christopher D. Bader, and Ye Jung Kim. 2009. “Round Trip to Hell in a Flying Saucer: The Relationship between Conventional Christian and Paranormal Beliefs in the United States.” Sociology of Religion 70(1):65–85. Myers, Scott M. 1996. “An Interactive Model of Religiosity Inheritance: The Importance of Family Context.” American Sociological Review 61(5):858–66. Orenstein, Alan. 2002. “Religion and Paranormal Belief.” Journal for the Scientifc Study of Religion 41(2):301–11. Willits, Fern K. and Donald M. Crider. 1989. “Church Attendance and Traditional Religious Beliefs in Adolescence and Young Adulthood: A Panel Study.” Review of Religious Research 31(1):68–81. Zhai, Jiexia Elisa, Christopher G. Ellison, Norval D. Glenn, E. Marquardt. 2007. “Parental Divorce and Religious Involvement among Young Adults.” Sociology of Religion 68(2):125–44. Zhai, Jiexia Elisa, Christopher G. Ellison, Charles E. Stokes, and Norval D. Glenn. 2008. “‘Spiritual, But Not Religious’: The Impact of Parental Divorce on the Religious and Spiritual Identities of Young Adults in the United States.” Review of Religious Research 49(4):379–94.

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After developing an interest in ghosts and negotiating their families’ attitudes toward this topic, investigators begin a journey that leads them to join or form a paranormal investigation team. Once involved, they are socialized into the idioculture of their team, including the team’s knowledge regime, investigative techniques, and feeling rules. Depending upon the team’s dominant investigative style, they fnd that the “right” way to sense spirits may involve technological tools, sensitive impressions, or a combination of the two. Through this socialization, they also start to see themselves as “paranormal investigators,” a quasi-professional role identity that they work to distinguish as legitimate and worthy of respect.

Exploration and transition to a team Regardless of whether they were intrigued by ghosts from a very early age or became interested as a result of experiences in their adult years, most investigators go through a period of exploration before actually joining a paranormal investigation team. During this phase, they educate themselves on the topic, experiment with ghost-related activities, and consume ghost-themed entertainment media. This period constitutes an informal socialization context that primes experients and enthusiasts to be interested in paranormal investigation once they become aware of the practice. Many engage in informal self-education by reading everything they can fnd on the topic of ghosts. After seeing her dead uncle standing at the foot of her bed, Barb read “everything they had” about ghosts in her school’s library, while Suzanne “started reading about ghosts, about reincarnation, [and] about the afterlife” shortly after seeing a spiritual being with red glowing eyes in her bedroom. The Internet also serves as another educational tool. Connor and Liz both reviewed purported audio and video clips of ghosts on the Unexplained Research and Shadowlands websites, two online forums dedicated to paranormal content. In addition, investigators experiment with the paranormal through engagement in adolescent thrill-seeking activities, such as legend tripping to cemeteries, abandoned buildings, and sites of traumatic death. Phil, for example, recalls that in high school, “everyone would get in the car and you’d

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go out to Bachelor’s Grove [Cemetery] with your fashlights and stuff and get the shit scared out of you.” Several investigators also used Ouija boards during their teenage years. In fact, Christy claims she was “addicted” to using a Ouija board in high school until one of her friends began “constantly hearing voices in her head telling her to kill herself.” After this experience, Christy and her friends no longer used the Ouija board, though they did legend trip to an abandoned mansion near her hometown. The most common form of exploration involves consumption of ghostthemed entertainment media. Many investigators regard older flms like The Haunting, The Amityville Horror, and Ghostbusters as well as more recent movies like The Others, Paranormal Activity, and The Conjuring as “classics” within the genre. They also frequently view television shows such as Supernatural, A Haunting, Unsolved Mysteries, and reality-style paranormal investigation shows, particularly Ghost Hunters, Ghost Adventures, and Paranormal State. This latter group of shows is critically important to investigators’ journey into paranormal investigation. In fact, thirty-eight of the forty-fve investigators I interviewed (84%) explained that they became aware of paranormal investigation by watching these shows. As Molle and Bader (2013) note, reality-style paranormal investigation shows democratize the search for evidence of ghosts by lowering the threshold for what constitutes research and who is perceived to be qualifed to conduct this research. Matthew’s statement in our interview captures this sentiment, which is shared by many investigators: I caught a commercial [for Ghost Hunters] on SyFy and I thought, “Jeez, I didn’t know people were actually doing this,” you know. I guess part of me thought it was still being done by scientists, you know, people who had doctorates and you had to get funding for it. When I saw the TV show I thought, “Wow, these plumbers are going out and doing this. So if plumbers can do it, why can’t I do it?”…It was a huge infuence. It gave me the idea that this is possible. Without Ghost Hunters I may have never taken that step [of joining a paranormal investigation team]. Seven of my interviewees said they were aware of paranormal investigation prior to the advent of these reality-style television shows. Of these seven, four became involved in paranormal investigation well before these shows began airing. Roger, for example, started investigating in the Seventies. Rather than naming Ghost Hunters or other such shows as infuences, he points to books by Harry Price and Hans Holzer as major infuences upon his thinking about the nature of ghosts and how best to collect evidence of their existence. Three others became aware through personal relationships with people who were interested in paranormal investigation. One such individual, Debra, participated in a public ghost hunt run by a local team at the urging of her sister. As she explains: I really didn’t want to go, but she said, “It’s going to be really fun,” so she talked me into it. Well, when I met the people I liked their approach.

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They were very scientifc; they didn’t use psychics or mediums. I liked that. After becoming aware of paranormal investigation, most investigators search online for a local team, though some contact local teams after learning about them through media coverage or word of mouth. Christy’s local newspaper ran an article about a team that was investigating a nearby historic tavern, so she contacted the group and offered her services as a psychic medium. Chad’s interest in Ghost Hunters led his wife to encourage him to attend a public presentation by a local group called Upper Midwest Paranormal: I was working late nights and was exhausted when I came home. I just wanted to watch some TV, so I’d turn on Ghost Hunters…. Probably about six or seven months later, my wife told me that Upper Midwest Paranormal was doing a library event where they discuss what they do. So I called [my friend] up and said, “Let’s go down there and see this group.” A few investigators started their own teams after being frustrated with the small number of active teams in their area, the non-responsiveness of the teams that do exist, or the investigative methods used by these teams. For example, after relocating to the Midwest, Sally searched online for teams in her area but decided to start her own team after not locating any active teams within a reasonable drive of her new home. Steven reached a similar decision after being frustrated by local teams’ failure to respond to his request for help with the strange activity occurring in his home. As he explains, “I Googled ‘paranormal teams of Wisconsin’ and came up with, like, ffteen [teams]. I sent an email to everybody and didn’t get one return email.” While sharing his frustration with a co-worker, Steven recalls, “it was kind of like a light bulb went off…and I looked at him and said, ‘I think I’m starting a team!’” Along with this coworker and a few friends, Steven founded a team that served the community in which they all lived. Regardless of exactly how they join or form teams, investigators approach the practice with an underlying openness—if not an established commitment—to the ontological position that ghosts exist. Moreover, by watching one or more of the reality-style paranormal investigation shows (or, in a few cases, through books or interpersonal contacts) they develop an inchoate preference for certain investigative methods. Understandably, individuals who believe they are sensitive want to be members of teams that respect paranormal claims made based on extrasensory abilities. For example, a sensitive named Rachel reports that she became aware of paranormal investigation by watching Paranormal State, a show in which multiple team members profess to have psychic abilities. After watching this show, she felt confdent that she too could be a paranormal investigator, noting, “I was like, ‘I could do this. I could totally do this. I already know most of this stuff’” (emphasis in original). In contrast, non-sensitive investigators seek teams who present themselves as rational,

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dispassionate, and methodical in their search for empirical evidence of ghosts. As mentioned earlier, Chad originally became interested in paranormal investigation by watching Ghost Hunters, which is packaged as a model of scientifc investigation. When he attended Upper Midwest Paranormal’s presentation at his local library, he was therefore excited to hear the team also self-identify as scientifc: When I went to the meeting and they said, “We’re a scientifcally-based group frst” that right there just is like the end-all for me. If [they] said, “We go off [the claims of] mediums” it would have been like, “That’s it. You guys are full of shit. I’m outta here.” But it was scientifc. It was very important to me to know that they used devices to try to document what they can. In short, by watching these shows and, in some cases, engaging with the idea of paranormal investigation through other channels, investigators develop preconceived notions about the “right” ways to investigate. These inform their decisions about the kinds of teams that they wish to join or form. Once they join or form a team, investigators are resocialized into the team’s way of doing things. Much like medical students (Becker et al. 1961; Haas and Shaffr 1977; 1982), social workers (Loseke and Cahill 1986), seminary students (Kleinman 1984), and mortuary science students (Cahill 1999a, 1999b) previously studied by symbolic interactionists and others, paranormal investigators learn how to properly conceptualize their practice, gain knowledge and skills appropriate to their objectives (namely, contacting and collecting evidence of ghosts), and internalize the “feeling rules” (Hochschild 1983) associated with the quasi-professional paranormal investigator role. This socialization occurs in the context of each team’s idioculture. As Fine defnes the concept, an idioculture is “a system of knowledge, belief, behaviors, and customs shared by members of an interacting group to which members can refer and employ as the basis of further interaction” (1979:734). Over time, idiocultures develop a “consensual meaning system” (Fine 1979:744) that informs members’ beliefs and infuences their actions. This meaning system is structured in accordance with the group’s “knowledge regime” (Fine 2010:362), a set of beliefs about what forms of knowledge are credible and who can legitimately make knowledge claims within the small group context. The idiocultural group grants highest status to those members who are perceived to be the most effective representatives of the group’s knowledge regime, so it is important that investigators conform to this set of expectations.

Conforming to the knowledge regime In the context of paranormal investigation teams, two distinct forms of knowledge claims are combined into three basic knowledge regimes. As described in Eaton (2018) and briefy in the Introduction, scientifc and sensitive styles

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of investigation are based on different ontological and epistemological assumptions, which in turn affect individual investigators’ and entire teams’ perspectives on the ultimate purpose of investigation. Scientifc investigators, and teams dominated by a scientifc approach, present themselves as skeptical of most paranormal claims but willing (or perhaps hoping) to be convinced by irrefutable empirical evidence of the existence of ghosts. These teams dedicate themselves to collecting data using a variety of technological tools that they believe might record evidence in the form of audio, video, or environmental data (such as a sudden drop in temperature, fuctuation in barometric pressure, or spike in electromagnetic energy). In contrast, sensitive investigators, and the teams that treat sensitive claims as evidence, are oriented more toward making contact with spirits to fnd out if they want to pass a message to the living, would like to cross over to the spirit world, or are, in fact, malevolent entities that need to be removed from the premises via a cleansing ritual. These two broad forms of knowledge claims seem to be incommensurate with one another at frst glance, and indeed the tension between scientifc and sensitive styles of investigation can cause rifts within teams. However, my interviews and observations reveal that paranormal investigators often integrate both forms of knowledge claims into their investigations, to a greater or lesser degree depending upon the team’s knowledge regime.

Science-dominant teams A science-dominant knowledge regime was most common among the teams I observed and the investigators I interviewed. Of my forty-fve investigators interview participants, twenty-fve (56%) describe the eleven different teams of which they are members as engaging in a skeptical, rational style of investigation that is heavily reliant upon various forms of technology. In addition, I observed members of three other teams but was unable to ever conduct interviews with these people. Of this group, members of two of the three teams display a science-dominant knowledge regime. In total, then, thirteen of the twenty-two teams (59%) whose members I interviewed and/or observed practice an investigative style that is dominated by use of technology and appeals to scientifc legitimacy. Teams who approach paranormal investigation from this perspective are committed to using technological tools to collect empirical data that they can later use to assess whether or not a particular location is haunted. They also use this equipment, in conjunction with their own observations, to fnd plausible ordinary explanations for what others perceive as signs of a spiritual presence. Moreover, these teams distrust claims that are solely based on either individual sensory experiences or, especially, purported extrasensory contact with spirits. In practice, this means that these teams are less likely to include members who identify as sensitives. Of the twenty-fve investigators who are members of science-dominant teams, only three identify as sensitives. In the context of the knowledge regime dominating their teams, these three sensitives downplay

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their abilities and subordinate their claims to those made using technologically derived data. Jack, the leader of Lake City Ghost Investigators, exemplifes the sciencedominant style of investigation. Describing himself as “Killjoy” because he loves to debunk paranormal claims, he explains that his team relies upon what he calls the “law of three” when conducting investigations. As an example of this “law,” Jack clarifes, “if you get an EMF spike with a cold spot that registers on device, with a photo, then that’s strong evidence” (emphasis in original). By this, he means that his team would be confdent in the presence of a spirit only if they were able to correlate an electromagnetic fuctuation with a sudden, localized temperature drop and a record of some kind of visual anomaly occurring in the same space and time, such as a dark fgure or an orb appearing in a photograph. The general sentiment of this “rule”—that the team would reach a paranormal explanation only if there was an abundance of empirical evidence supporting such a conclusion—is widely shared among investigators on these teams. In addition, science-dominant teams focus on looking for plausible nonparanormal explanations before jumping to the conclusion that a location is haunted. Terri, the team leader of Heartland Paranormal, describes herself as a “skeptical believer” in ghosts and believes “there’s a possibility that [a haunting] can happen, but I’m skeptical until I have more data to back it up.” To capture such data, her team deploys a plethora of technological tools, including (but not limited to) audio recorders, digital video cameras, electromagnetic frequency detectors, and data loggers that recorded the air temperature, humidity, and barometric pressure in a location. She also teaches her team members to assess the physical and mental health of clients to see if they can fnd alternative explanations for perceived paranormal experiences before investigating a location. As she explains: We don’t just take [claims of] personal experiences as “Then that’s what it is.” Medical conditions like sleep disorders or eye problems can cause you to have experiences that seem paranormal. Or clients might have psychological problems that are causing them to hallucinate. Along with this skeptical attitude toward clients’ claims, science-dominated teams also normalize devaluation of sensitives’ claims. Leaders and many members of these teams think sensitive investigation styles are inherently fawed because they rely upon the subjective interpretation of personal experiences and even introduce the possibility of outright fraud. Matthew asserts, for example, that “a lot of mediums are looking for attention…. They’re not someone who is actually trying to get evidence of the paranormal; they’re just there to make themselves feel important because they’re communing with the dead.” The three sensitives I interviewed who were members of such teams therefore learn to downplay their extrasensory abilities and subordinate their knowledge claims to those based on information acquired via equipment. For example,

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Dennis, who was a member of Upper Midwest Paranormal, minimizes the informational value of his sensitive impressions: The stuff I experience in my head, that’s not concrete proof to me. I want to set up a camera and watch shit go fying around, you know? Or knock something over or something move, you know? That’s what I’m looking for…. If I say, “Can someone please make that coffee cup tip over?” and, boom, it tips over, in my mind that would be proof that there’s an intelligent spirit [present] (emphasis in original). Connor claims that nearly every member of his team, the Nightstalkers Paranormal Research Society, possesses some kind of sensitive ability. Nonetheless, his team relies upon an array of electromagnetic frequency detectors, audio and video cameras, infrared motion sensors, and many other devices. As he explains, “we have a rule on our team that if you feel anything while investigating you’re not allowed to tell the client…. We can’t prove it, so basically the only way we’re actually going to tell the client that [the psychic impression] is if we can actually prove it through evidence or research.” Non-sensitive members of these teams take sensitive impressions seriously only if they are validated by another source of information. For example, Barb, who is a member of Jack’s team, typically does not trust claims made by a female sensitive on the team “unless she picks up on something I can later verify.” For example, during one investigation at a farmhouse this sensitive claimed to feel the presence of a person who had died in the grain silo. Although no team members were aware of any such event, after some follow-up research Barb learned that someone had indeed died in the silo. She treated this documentary evidence as an independent confrmation of her teammate’s extrasensory abilities. This story illustrates an exceptional case. In general, sensitives’ claims are not categorized as “evidence” on science-dominant teams. Members of these teams therefore learn that the “right” way to sense spirits may include information gathered through extrasensory abilities, but only if this information is corroborated by data gathered through what are considered more valid methods and sources.

Integrated teams The second most common knowledge regime among those I interviewed and observed is what I call an integrated approach. Of the forty-fve interviewees, fourteen (31%) describe the six teams they represent as showing mutual respect for scientifc and sensitive forms of knowledge. These fourteen investigators include fve non-sensitives and nine sensitives. Additionally, I observed two members of one other team that also practices an integrated investigative style. Collectively, these seven teams represent 32% of the twenty-two teams that I observed or interviewed.

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Members and leaders of these teams explain that they see scientifc and sensitive approaches as working synergistically. For example, Hannah, a sensitive who founded a team called Guiding Light Investigations, explains that her team incorporates both scientifc and sensitive investigation styles into “a balanced, harmonious way to collect different forms of data,” and she asserts that “if you combine the two, you’ll yield far better results.” Typically, this “harmony” manifests in two ways. First, non-sensitives use sensitives to locate “hot spots” where they believe paranormal activity is more likely to occur, and then use this information to decide where to place electronic equipment. Second, sensitives relay how spirits are reacting to investigators’ attempts to communicate and gather evidence, and this feedback is then used to guide things like electronic voice phenomena (EVP) sessions. These patterns are refected in Rachel’s description of how her team, the Paranormal Research Network, integrates scientifc and sensitive approaches: We mix and match. We use a lot of the scientifc equipment because physical proof [of paranormal activity] is like gold. To be able to show [clients] a video or let them hear something [is great because] a lot of people put more faith in that than they would in the more sensitive side of stuff…. Our members who are sensitive can tell you if something is here, or if it’s a male presence or a female, or a negative entity or benign…. So we try to log everything from both sides so that we can get a bigger picture. A couple of members of integrated teams even portray technology as a potential barrier to sensing spirits. Kenneth, a sensitive and member of Hannah’s team, argues that investigators should pay more attention to their emotions during investigations and laments: if the thousands of paranormal groups out there understood the emotional interplay with the environment in an investigation, you would start having more evidence. But they’re just focused on the physical; they’re focused on the instrument (emphasis in original). Likewise, a non-sensitive investigator named Kaye who is a member of the Rust Belt Revenant Seekers, reports that she fnds technology intrusive when trying to “feel” a location: When I frst started, I wanted to grab all my equipment and put it out, and then I realized I was looking more at my equipment instead of just sitting and paying attention to what was going on around me. And now I feel like it’s so much more important to go in and just be in the building or whatever the location is, and feel it for a while, you know?… I have all the [technological] toys…but it’s too much to keep track of and I feel like it throws you off (emphasis in original). These investigators challenge paranormal investigators’ reliance upon technology, arguing instead that the “right” way to sense spirits is to combine the strengths of scientifc and sensitive investigation styles.

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Unsurprisingly, in comparison to science-dominant teams, integrated teams are more welcoming to people who identify as sensitives. Nonetheless, despite this emphasis on mutual respect, several sensitives on such teams report that they are reluctant to share their impressions and believe they should subordinate their knowledge claims to those based on technologically acquired data. Robin, for example, is one of the sensitive members of the Rust Belt Revenant Seekers. Even though her team incorporates sensitive claims into their investigations, Robin still worries that her teammates may think she is foolish or dishonest for making such claims. As a result, she reports: I’m very shy about it. It’s not like I go, “I feel this or that” with our group…. When I get things on a recorder or pictures, I’ll show it to the people I’m with. But there’s no reason to put how I feel out in the world, because no one’s going to believe it (emphasis in original). Another sensitive named Raven, who is a member of the Rock City Ghost Hunters, also prioritizes equipment-based forms of investigation over information she receives through extrasensory abilities: As far as being a paranormal investigator, I focus more on EVP…because it’s harder to walk around and say “Oh, I feel a really strong energy in this corner” and no one else can. I don’t believe it’s strong evidence because I’m the only one who is experiencing it. I would like to capture something a little more physical or more audible. I focus on EVPs because if I say, “I thought I saw a shadow fgure in the corner” and we just happen to catch an EVP shortly before or after me saying so, it’s validation that perhaps I did see something. Thus, even though integrated teams grant legitimacy to both sensitive and technologically mediated knowledge claims, it remains unclear on these teams whether sensitive and scientifc claims are truly perceived as equally valid or whether sensitive claims are treated as also valid—that is, as a useful supplement to scientifc claims. To some degree, therefore, these teams reproduce the epistemological hierarchy that is prevalent among science-dominant teams.

Sensitive-dominant teams The least common knowledge regime is a sensitive-dominant style of investigation. Only six of the forty-fve investigators I interviewed (13%) report being members or leaders of such teams, representing two of the twenty-two teams (9%) whose members I interviewed and/or observed. Sensitive-dominant teams tend to be very small and tight-knit, often consisting of a sensitive and her/his close friends or family. In fact, Dave, the only non-sensitive member of either sensitive-dominant team, was married to Fiona, a sensitive and team

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leader. On these teams, the knowledge regime gives primacy to claims made by sensitives, though technological tools are still utilized in a limited way. Sensitive-dominant teams critique the technology-heavy and emotionally detached style of investigation that dominates the subculture. Members of these teams invert science-dominant teams’ knowledge regime by prioritizing feelings and intuition over logic and empirical data. This approach is refected in the words of Allison, a sensitive who co-founded the Riverside Phantom Chasers: I’d love for logic and reason to take a back seat for a bit and let the closeness we felt to our natural world return. By this, I mean that I would like to see people return to trusting their “gut” and not just toss it aside as if it isn’t really a part of them. I feel like we have tried to explain everything as if it is somehow mechanical, including ourselves. That we no longer give ourselves credit for experiencing the world around us with all of our senses. Her teammate Jeremiah employs this emotion-centered investigative style by opening himself up to manipulation by the spirits haunting a location: Usually, I feel a tingling at the top of my head, and that’s the signal, “Hey, it’s time,” you know, somebody wants in…. You can actually feel and think what they’re thinking without actually hearing the words. Sometimes I hear the words. Sometimes literally my eyes are closed and I’m letting them walk me around. And literally as that’s happening, I’m seeing [my surroundings] as they see things, even though it’s not like that anymore. At the same time, these investigators do not entirely avoid technological equipment; rather, they incorporate it as a way to validate claims made on the basis of extrasensory abilities. After expressing her frustration with “logic and reason,” Allison went on to say: My favorite piece of equipment is the digital recorder. EVPs are crucial, because in with the digital age you can fake so much, but with EVPs you can measure their Hertz level and say, “Look, this is what we got. How do you explain that?”…So it’s important to be able to validate what the psychics are receiving. It’s great to have some evidence to back that up. Members of the second sensitive-dominant team in my sample, Hidden Truth Paranormal, use technical equipment, as well as other methods, to increase the validity of claims made by two sensitives on the team. Dave, the only nonsensitive of the three, describes their equipment as “state of the art” and says that they regularly use digital video cameras, digital audio recorders, a spirit box, and a device called a Parascope that lights up when it senses a change in

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static electricity. Team member Sabrina supports the use of this equipment as a way of proving the presence of spirits to those who do not have extrasensory abilities: Recorders, cameras, those types of things are gonna get that hard evidence that people want…. It’s not evidence for me. I don’t need the proof. For me, I know it’s there; I deal with it daily. But for those investigators who don’t have a gift like I have, I want them to have that, to be able to say, “Look, I caught a full-bodied apparition!” or “I have a clear voice on EVP!”…Getting the hard evidence is the best thing you can do, ‘cause not everybody has the same ability going into the situation as I do, so I want them to have the evidence, the proof (emphasis in original). The team deploys this equipment only after Fiona and Sabrina walk through the location and note the places where they feel the presence of spirits. Both prefer to go into a location “cold,” meaning they have not reviewed any paranormal claims associated with the property before arriving. As Sabrina explains, during their sensitive walkthrough, “Fiona and I both write down things that come to us—what’s there, who’s there. We write down names that’re coming to us and scenarios.” In our interview, Fiona added that they seal these notes in an envelope and do not tell each other about their individual impressions prior to the investigation. These efforts mimic, to some degree, scientifc teams’ efforts to maintain control over investigative conditions and variables that might hinder the credibility of a team’s conclusions about the haunted status of a location. The key difference is that sensitive-dominant teams grant extrasensory claims prima facie status as “evidence,” while data collected using technological devices is only used to support these claims. In this regard, the “right” way to sense spirits on these teams is to trust one’s intuition and sparingly incorporate technology as a source of confrmatory data for those who do not share sensitive investigators’ extrasensory gifts.

Learning the “right” investigative techniques Receiving training in the distinct knowledge and skills required to enact the duties of the profession is a key element of professional socialization. As Cahill (1999a:117) argues: it is not so much the relative success of an occupation’s public claim to professional status that promotes the successful professional socialization of occupational neophytes. It is, rather, an occupation’s publicly recognized claim to a distinctive and defnitive occupational jurisdiction. Whether esteemed or not, occupations with a defnitive license to “carry out activities rather different from other people” have a foundation on which to build neophytes’ professional identities.

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Cahill’s analysis is particularly relevant for paranormal investigation because, although it cannot be called an occupation per se, this practice is publicly recognized as performing a unique function in society. Furthermore, like Cahill’s (1999a, 1999b) mortuary science students, paranormal investigators also face stigmatization in a relatively religious and death-denying culture where attempting to interact with the dead is treated as morally questionable. Within this marginalized and stigmatized context, paranormal investigators have both the freedom and the responsibility to socialize each other in the ways of investigating that they defne as “right.” Most investigators receive no formal training on the appropriate use of technological equipment or how to properly use their sensitive abilities for the purposes of paranormal investigation. As Terri acknowledges, “There’s not a school where you can learn how to become a paranormal investigator, so a lot of it is trial and error…[W]e basically learn by example [and] our own experiences.” Team leaders and experienced investigators show new members how to use equipment in a manner that Matthew describes as “on the fy.” As he states: I’ll quickly explain to them, “This is the EMF meter. Turn it on, hold it like this, and walk around and go [moves his hand top to bottom and then right to left in front of his body]. Do a cross-x pattern when you do EMF sweeps.” Heidi, a member of Matthew’s team, says she learned how to use technological tools, such as cameras and electromagnetic feld (EMF) detectors, by following Matthew while he set up this equipment and “asking a ton of questions, like ‘Why are we putting this here?’ [and] ‘What does this do?’” When teams are formed by inexperienced investigators, leaders do not have the knowledge base to properly train their members to use technological equipment. In many such cases, team leaders look to reality-style paranormal investigation shows as a model. Echoing the sentiments expressed by many investigators, Xavier reports that when he watched such shows, he “would study their tactics and how to use their equipment in my own investigations.” Teams that use television shows as a model tend to purchase the equipment that is used on their favorite shows, such as Ghost Hunters and Ghost Adventures. Underlying this pattern is an assumption that the stars of these shows are experts and, therefore, the equipment they use represents the best practices in the feld. Alternatively, inexperienced teams turn to the leaders of established teams in their area for guidance on how to use electronic equipment and collect other forms of data. Steven, for example, invited Matthew to train his team how to use equipment and systematically investigate properties shortly after forming Crossroads Paranormal. Before forming Riverside Phantom Chasers, Allison was a member of a team that was led by two men who formed the team after watching reality-style paranormal television shows. This team was “taken under the wing of a local group and allowed to practice

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on their equipment” until they felt confdent enough to investigate on their own. The informal and non-systematic nature of technical training undercuts teams’ claims that paranormal investigation is—or at least is in the process of becoming—a legitimate science. Unlike the natural sciences, which police the boundaries of their disciplines by requiring practitioners to adhere to standardized techniques using objective methods (Gieryn 1983), there is no absolute consensus in paranormal investigation subculture regarding the “right” or “wrong” investigative tools or techniques. It is true that investigative styles that participants label as “scientifc” dominate the subculture. However, in my interviews and observations it became apparent that this term does not refer to a systematic application of scientifc principles but rather signifes the use of a wide variety of technological gadgets. In my interviews, non-sensitive investigators often use “scientifcal” (Hill 2017) language to describe their investigative methods. They also describe in detail the equipment they use, how this equipment works, and why they believe certain equipment is ineffective. For example, in the extensive interview excerpt below, Jennifer, the leader of Mission Objective Paranormal, describes her team’s equipment and dismisses other devices that she believes are either ineffective or frequently misused: We use Tascam audio recorders plugged into two Shure microphones so we have four channels, and we utilize Faraday cages around our audio devices to block out interference. We use a DVR [digital video recording] system. We use police body cameras because they can see up to thirty feet in pitch-black and it’s timestamped, so you can’t manipulate it. We use infrared lights. And then because we have a team member who is an electrician, he knows how to correctly read a MEL meter so we have him use that. ‘Cause you see people go in [to a reportedly haunted location] with a K2 [EMF meter] that’s only single-axis, but you don’t see them turning the thing in three different directions and then calculating an EM level, which is what you need to do. But the MEL is a tri-axis meter…. We won’t bring in something like a REM Pod. We don’t use ghost boxes because we understand how radio frequencies work and how they can be manipulated…. Basically, if it has the words “ghost” or “paranormal” attached to it, that’s not really gonna work with our team. Such displays of technical expertise are likely intended to illustrate the scientifcally rigorous nature of technological methods of investigation. However, in other interviews and during ethnographic observations, I was told about or shown the “scientifc” legitimacy of ghost boxes, REM pods, K2 meters, and other pieces of equipment that Jennifer disregards. With no central authority to establish a subcultural standard by which to judge the effectiveness of equipment, defnitions of the “right” equipment to use and the “right” ways to use such equipment largely depend upon a consensus emerging at the idiocultural level on individual teams.

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Sensitive methods of investigation are even less standardized than those based on electronic equipment. In part, the idiosyncratic nature of sensitive techniques of investigation stems from the belief that each sensitive possesses a unique combination of extrasensory abilities that, therefore, must be utilized in individualized ways. Connor, for example, says, “nearly everyone on [his] team has a gift,” and then specifes: Claire and Nathan, they’re psychics; they can actually talk to spirits. Reed can feel them and see them, but he can’t really talk to them. And then Zach, he’s a healer, so he can feel their energy and make them feel better. And then me and Katie, we’re empathic intuitive, which means we can feel the energy around us, we can feel spirits, [and] we can feel emotions. Precisely because these abilities are generally regarded as “gifts” received either through genetic heritage or circumstance (such as a near-death experience), teams that incorporate sensitive impressions rarely attempt to train those who claim to have such abilities on the “right” ways to incorporate these abilities into paranormal investigation. Five of the seventeen sensitives I interviewed did receive some limited training related to their extrasensory abilities. Robin is the only sensitive to seek any type of formalized training, which in her case was a non-accredited psychic development course run by a local medium. Both Dennis and Allison worked alongside a more experienced sensitive when they frst joined their teams. These more established sensitives helped Dennis and Allison validate the accuracy of their extrasensory perceptions by verifying that they too sensed the same spiritual presences as these new team members. Dennis recounts one such instance that was particularly memorable involving Sandra, a sensitive who had been a team member for a couple of years before Dennis joined: So Sandra and I go into a room where this woman is supposedly in the closet, and I see this woman. Her hair is up in a bun and she’s wearing an apron. So I ask Sandra, “What does her hair look like?” and she says, “Well, it’s up in a bun.” And I say, “Is she wearing an apron?” and she says “Yeah.” So we’d go back and forth like that, with her confrming what I saw and me confrming what she saw. Kathleen and Christy were trained by Jerry, an experienced investigator and sensitive who was a member of Upper Midwest Paranormal at the time. Through a series of informal training sessions, Jerry taught them to become more aware of spirits in their midst. As Kathleen recalls, “He was trying to teach us how to sense things. And he didn’t say ‘If you go over there you’re gonna feel this.’ Instead, he said, ‘Go over there and tell me what you feel.’” Similarly, Christy remembers:

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both [Kathleen] and I were feeling certain that there was [the spirit of] a man in the room. I gave a full description of what I thought he looked like and Jerry said, “Okay, yes, there’s a man here. Where is he?” And then all of a sudden both her and I felt something between us. Such training is important for sensitives who are new to paranormal investigation because it teaches them to view their extrasensory abilities as a unique form of expertise and increases their confdence in sensitive perceptions as an accurate data source. Sensitive investigators generally do not express much personal interest in using electronic equipment because they believe their abilities enable them to know with certainty whether or not spirits are present. However, they also recognize that they are functioning in a subcultural context in which technological methods of data collection are dominant and perceived as more valid. To combat the relative devaluation of sensitive abilities in this environment, sensitives often couch their extrasensory abilities in technological analogies as a rhetorical means of increasing the perceived validity of their claims. For example, Jeremiah describes himself as “an antenna” and compares receiving communications from the spirit world to tuning in a car radio: [It’s like] you’re driving along in the car and the AM radio, you’re kind of getting a station and you’re kind of not…. And then all of a sudden a station comes in; you got it clear as a bell. And then you drive a little bit farther and then it kind of goes out, but then you kind of hear stuff in the background. That’s what I get 24/7 (emphasis in original). Allison also compares sensing spirits to “tuning a radio to an AM channel” and reports that she will regularly “download” information from two Native American spirit guides (deceased humans who have reached a higher state of enlightenment) during the night: I swear to God, my guides totally wake me up at around two or three o’clock in the morning, ‘cause that’s like when they want to download all kinds of information to you. Um, I don’t have any better way of describing it than downloading. All of a sudden [my] mind is racing…[and] I get this high-pitched ringing in the ear all of a sudden. Using such analogies allows sensitives to assert a kinship between electronic equipment and extrasensory abilities and presents sensitive abilities as a form of (technological) expertise that should also be granted legitimacy within the paranormal investigation subculture.

Internalizing the feeling rules Along with acquiring the requisite knowledge and skills, a key element of professional socialization is learning the “feeling rules” of a professional role.

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As Hochschild (1983) explains, feeling rules establish expectations for suppressing, evoking, and displaying emotions in ways that are considered appropriate within the normative order of a given social or cultural context. For example, in professions like medicine (Hafferty 1988; Smith and Kleinman 1989) and mortuary science (Cahill 1999b) where practitioners must deal with death and disease, students are taught to create emotional distance between themselves and their (living and non-living) human patients. The feeling rules of these professions enable practitioners to effectively accomplish technical tasks without being overcome by sadness, disgust, or other distracting emotions. In contrast, Kleinman (1981, 1984) reports that ministry students within a humanistic seminary are taught to decrease the distance between themselves and their parishioners and make themselves more emotionally available. Some roles, such as the search and rescue volunteers studied by Lois (2001), require a balance of emotional distance and empathy depending upon the immediate emotional needs of the people being assisted. Professional feeling rules guide practitioners to embrace certain emotions, avoid others, and redefne unwanted emotions that they cannot avoid. This emotion work (Hochschild 1983) is directed toward helping professionals perform tasks the “right” way so as to best accomplish their goals. Because paranormal investigators do not have access to any formal training centers, they receive emotional socialization within the idiocultural environments of their teams. As may be expected, the feeling rules on these teams differ depending upon each team’s knowledge regime. While scientifc-dominant teams enforce emotional norms more akin to the medical model, sensitivedominant teams align more with humanistic service professions. In keeping with their mixed-method approach to investigation, integrated teams accept both modes of emotional expression depending upon the context. It is useful to imagine the teams’ emotional socialization as existing on a continuum, with emotional stoicism on the scientifc end of the spectrum and emotional openness on the sensitive end. At both ends of the spectrum, certain emotions are to be embraced while others are to be avoided if at all possible. As others (Hochschild 1983; Lois 2001) have also found in their settings, the feeling rules that exist in paranormal investigation are gender coded, with men more likely to embrace stoicism and women more open to emotional expression. For non-sensitive investigators on science-dominant or integrated teams, the goal is to remain emotionally stoic in the face of fear. Indeed, fear is perceived as a threatening emotion because it challenges these investigators’ claims to scientifc objectivity by belying their claims to emotional distance. As Matthew puts it, “people who get startled easily just won’t work in this feld. You can’t be losing your mind when stuff happens; you need to be able to keep your cool.” To control their fear during paranormal investigations, these investigators learn to use four strategies. First, some deny that they feel fear during investigations. Jack, for example, claims, “I’m not really afraid of it at all. I’m the weird guy that’s walking around in the haunted prison in the dark, alone. And if something [paranormal]

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happens, I move towards it instead of stepping away.” Another approach is to admit the presence of fear but diminish its ability to impede one’s investigation by mentally preparing for events that might provoke a fear response. As Xavier explains: I try to do a lot of mental preparation before investigations. Like, I ask myself, “Xavier, are you okay with this happening?” and I imagine what I would do…. Like, if I gave a spirit permission to touch me, that way I would know it [the contact] was coming…. The fear is still there, but I’ve been getting a lot better at controlling it (emphasis in original). A third strategy involves attempting to ignore fear when it threatens to overcome one’s ability to focus on collecting data. For example, Chad asserts that: when investigating, you have to tell yourself that there’s nothing there, [that] it doesn’t exist…I might be freaked out of my mind, but being able to tell myself that I’m a skeptic and that I don’t believe in this stuff really helps. Lastly, some investigators embrace fear and recast fear as evidence of the presence of a spirit. As Tommy states: I don’t think you’re a real investigator until you’ve had the living Jesus scared out of you at least once! You have to have that epiphany moment. Like, I got punched right in the kidney once; it was a good shot, too. Your frst reaction is [that] it scares the living shit out of you. And then you’re like, “C’mon, do it again! Come on [laughs]!” Similarly, Debra explains: you learn to realize that you’re feeling scared because you can’t see what’s grabbing you. So at that point you say, ‘Okay, I’m scared, but I’m fne with being scared…. It’s not that you overcome your fear; you learn to accept your fear (emphasis in original). Through these strategies, non-sensitive investigators control and redefne their fears, thus reducing the ability of fear to undermine their performance of an emotionally detached, scientifcally objective mode of investigation. The feeling rules for sensitive investigators are more complicated. On the one hand, sensitives are encouraged to openly express their emotions. In fact, strong emotional expressions that seemingly do not correspond to events occurring in the surrounding environment are treated as signs of authentic communication with spirits (Woofftt 2006) or even with God (Luhrmann 2012) among those who believe in such abilities. There is an incentive, therefore, to display emotions that fellow investigators may perceive as proof of one’s

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extrasensory abilities. This is particularly true for sensitives who are members of integrated teams, where the reality of such abilities may be questioned by fellow team members. On the other hand, sensitives are sometimes reluctant to do so because they are concerned that by making themselves open to spirits they increase the risk of becoming overwhelmed by a spirit’s emotions and may even make them more vulnerable to spiritual attacks. To minimize the likelihood of such things, sensitives learn to establish emotional boundaries in their interactions with spirits. Several sensitives experienced emotional disturbances after opening themselves up to spirits. As Pattie, who is a member of a sensitive-dominant team, explains: If it was a little old man or lady who just loved the house, that’s a warm feeling, you know? But [if it’s] children or somebody that was murdered— I’ve been in those places, and it makes me uncomfortable. That’s when I’m vulnerable. I cry. I cry and get scared. To allow themselves to be emotionally open while also protecting themselves from such strong negative emotions, sensitives adopt protection strategies rooted in spiritual or religious beliefs. Those who hold New Age beliefs implement strategies that incorporate psychic visualizations and spirit guides. To protect herself from negative emotions, before each investigation Pattie will “put up [her] armor” by “say[ing] a prayer for assistance and to protect [herself].” Her teammate Allison describes a similar process: When I start to feel anxious or [am] really getting that sense of fght or fight, I force myself to sit through it and let the spirit know that I won’t be chased away. I let them know that I’m fully aware that they’re trying to scare me and to knock it off. If I get really unsettled, I call on my [spirit] guides or angels to protect me, and try to visualize a white light around me (emphasis in original). Christy, the leader of an integrated team, claims she experienced a “psychic attack” at a reportedly haunted property. During this “episode,” as she calls it, Christy suddenly “started shaking and broke down crying and screaming, and ended up curled in a ball on the foor.” After this frightening experience, she armed herself with a Bible and holy water prior to the team’s next visit to the property and recalls that she “threw [holy water] everywhere in that room!” Whether due to her actions or another reason, during this subsequent visit Christy did not experience any negative contact with malevolent spirits. It is especially tricky for male sensitives to navigate these feeling rules. As men, they are expected to conform to hegemonic expectations of emotional stoicism. At the same time, as sensitives they are expected to display strong emotions as evidence that they are in contact with spirits. These male sensitives use several strategies to appeal to masculinity while not undercutting their

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claims to extrasensory perception. One strategy that these investigators use is to play up their masculine ability to face their fears. In our interview, Kenneth admits, “When I frst started, I would become afraid. There were things that would come into my space that would turn my blood to ice.” However, he continues, “After several tries, I learned to deal with it. It’s a process; you just gotta learn to push through that fear.” A second strategy is to minimize the emotional impact of an extrasensory experience by using qualifying language such as “almost” or “just about” when describing their emotional responses. This strategy is exemplifed by Dennis’ description of his reaction to seeing an apparition of a young girl: We were going through the house and we got to one of the bedrooms, and I don’t know how to describe it other than in my head I saw this image of a girl. She was about this tall [holds his hand out to indicate about four feet tall], she had curly brown hair down to her shoulders, [and] a red fower in her hair. She had on a white dress with a fower design, and she was smiling. And seconds after I went into that room, I almost started crying. I was just overwhelmed…I was just about freaking out. I was so shaken (emphasis added). Use of qualifying language allows male sensitives to simultaneously display the authenticity of their extrasensory abilities and to assert their masculinity. By pointing out, for example, that he was on the verge of “crying” and “freaking out” after seeing the girl, Dennis positions his experience as a genuine spirit encounter. On the other hand, by noting that he did not actually begin crying or freaking out, he emphasizes that he maintained (masculine) emotional selfcontrol despite the shock and fear he experienced. A third strategy involves expression of emotions that are culturally coded as masculine, such as anger and misogynistic attitudes. A good example of this strategy arises in my interview with Jeremiah, who recounts a time when he contacted a male spirit while he (along with Allison and Pattie) investigated a building that allegedly functioned as an illegal alcohol warehouse during Prohibition: We went downstairs to the lower level…and we got to a room where there’s this guy. He’s very intense, [saying] “Get the women out! Women don’t belong here! They need to stay in the kitchen where they belong.” I’m like, “What’s the problem with the women?” And his exact words were, “You made me lose my hooch.”…We go upstairs afterward and there’s a guy who’s the caretaker of the building, so I tell him what I heard and he goes, “Oh yeah, they hid their booze here during Prohibition.” And it was Protestant women who were the ones that started Prohibition, so that’s why he doesn’t like women. In this example, Jeremiah uses the male spirit as the “voice” for these misogynistic statements, but in retelling this account also displays two things: his direct

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connection to the spirit world (and therefore the authenticity of his extrasensory abilities) and his implicit acceptance of normative masculine attitudes about women. By using these strategies, male sensitives protect both their claims to masculinity and their extrasensory abilities by balancing emotional involvement and detachment in their accounts. Considered in conjunction with the other emotion management strategies described above, these efforts can be seen as part of a larger set of feeling rules that establish the “right” ways to emote (or not) during paranormal investigations. Both sensitive and non-sensitive investigators exert control over their emotions in ways that conform to the normative expectations that are dominant within their teams’ idiocultures.

Legitimizing the “paranormal investigator” identity After being socialized into the knowledge regime and accompanying technical skills and feeling rules of their teams, investigators begin to develop personal identities as “paranormal investigators.” This requires them to internalize an identity that they know is associated with stigmatized beliefs and practices in the dominant culture. While it is true that ghost-themed content is ubiquitous in popular culture, such stories are usually positioned as entertainment, not as a topic worthy of genuine scientifc investigation. This framing of paranormal investigation portrays it as a fun, but not serious, endeavor. In addition, accusations of fraud and deception haunt those who claim to be able to communicate with or provide evidence of spirits. This trend has historic roots in academic reactions against Spiritualism (e.g., Braude 2001; Weisberg 2004) and a contemporary corollary in criticisms of psychic mediums who charge for readings (e.g., Woofftt 2006; Woofftt and Gilbert 2008; Woofftt et al. 2013). To counteract these discrediting associations, paranormal investigators use three forms of “identity work” (Snow and Anderson 1987) to reframe the practice as a serious, quasi-professional activity that is worthy of respect. First, investigators engage in disparagement of paranormal entertainment media. Ironically, given the pivotal role that shows such as Ghost Hunters, Ghost Adventures, and Paranormal State play in their awareness of and initial involvement in paranormal investigation, once they are part of the subculture investigators tend to criticize these shows. Fiona, for example, believes that reality-style paranormal shows, “haven’t told the truth about what psychics or hauntings are[,]…and a lot of them fake evidence. That is gonna give us a bad reputation.” A non-sensitive investigator named Josh echoes these sentiments: I think a lot of the shows are fake and rigged because they always have something they fnd. I realize they’re going to places with a lot of [paranormal] history, but with the investigations I’ve done with UMP [Upper Midwest Parnaormal] so far I don’t think we’ve found anything. And UMP has a lot of equipment. So when you’re putting fve or six cameras

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in a house where ghosts are supposed to be pulling babies out of arms and you’re not catching anything—and yet these guys on TV are fnding, like, fve or six things every time—it just doesn’t add up (emphasis in original). Several investigators also blame the flm Ghostbusters for popularizing an image of paranormal investigation that they believe completely misrepresents what they do. Roger, for example, reports being called a “ghostbuster” countless times since this flm was released, and states that in his interactions with clients he adamantly asserts: we’re not Dan Aykroyd and Bill Murray! We’re not “ghostbusters.” I don’t go in there and remove the spirit. Really what I am trying to do is rule out natural explanations or fnd a logical explanation of what’s been going on. Investigators’ refutations of such cultural representations of their practice are intended to reframe paranormal investigation as a serious endeavor undertaken by credible people; in short, to position it as a quasi-professional activity. Secondly, investigators counter potential accusations of irresponsibility, deception, or fraud through disavowal of recreational and self-interested motives. One facet of this strategy is to contrast paranormal investigation with “thrillseeking” or “ghost hunting,” with these being cast as unprofessional attempts to make contact with spirits. Although many investigators admit that the thrill of possibly seeing a ghost was part of their initial motivation for joining a team, they distinguish themselves from people whose primary motivation is thrillseeking. As Rachel states: You kinda have to be a thrill-seeker to be willing to go into a haunted place in the pitch dark for however long and try to get things to touch you and do stuff. So yes, we’re thrill seekers. But then we want evidence (emphasis in original). Likewise, Chad is adamant that paranormal investigators are, “not just thrillseekers [because] if we were thrill-seekers we’d just be there for the [adrenaline] fx.” As I learned when I frst began my interviews, paranormal investigators do not want to be labeled “ghost hunters.” Terri explains the distinction as follows: I think part of the reasons why we want to be called investigators versus ghost hunters is ‘cause we don’t go out to a cemetery with a fashlight and try to look at stuff. We actually try to look for other reasons why, and that’s why we interview our clients for about three hours before we even go do the investigation. We’re looking for all kinds of different information. Plus, there’s research on the property or city and people [clients] to

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see if there’s anything [suspicious] from their background. We’re not just going out for thrill-seeking, you know what I mean? Debra also disavows an association with the “ghost hunter” label, explaining, “I like to think of myself as a paranormal investigator. I’m investigating; we’re doing research. A ghost hunter goes for their own satisfaction. An investigator is gonna try and put proof out there” (emphasis in original). By rhetorically distinguishing themselves from “thrill-seekers” and “ghost hunters,” paranormal investigators portray their engagement with the paranormal as a form of quasiprofessional labor that requires research skills and systematic observations. Another facet of this form of identity work is disavowal of any efforts to achieve monetary gain or fame through paranormal investigation. Expressing his frustration with clients’ misunderstanding of paranormal investigators’ motives and ethics, Matthew remarks: I explain that we have a confdentiality form, and if you don’t want me to release something [such as a report naming the location] I’m not going to release it, obviously. I’m not going to get famous by some silly little EVP or something that I catch, and that’s not what I’m here for anyways…. Plus, there’s the historical aspect of where mediums were bilking people out of money and preying on people. So people assume we charge, even though we say we don’t right on the website. But with the culture, it’s a constant uphill climb. Matthew’s reference to “the culture” in this excerpt is telling, in that it denotes an awareness of the stigmatized perception of the practice that is prevalent in the dominant culture. This stigma is especially acute for sensitive investigators, who also struggle against the cultural association of mediums with fraud and deception. Sensitive paranormal investigators strenuously deny seeking fame and fortune; instead, they frame their abilities as “gifts” that they have been given in order to help others. Jeremiah’s comments are indicative of this strategy: Some people want fame and fortune and everything that goes with it. I don’t believe that’s the reason I have this ability. The reason I have it is so I can help somebody with their loved one’s passing, you know. Give them the answer that they’re looking for, or the answers they’re looking for. But to be rich and famous from this? No, that’s not where I want to be. But there are some [sensitives], that’s all they want…. I don’t charge. I don’t do this to make money or [get into] newspaper articles or anything like that. I do it because it helps them [clients]. By marking monetary gain and fame as the wrong reasons for getting involved in paranormal investigation and contrasting themselves with an imagined group of people whose motive were self-serving, investigators rhetorically

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align themselves with the “right” reasons for investigating, which include the accumulation of empirical evidence of ghosts and the assistance of those who believe they are experiencing a haunting (emphasis in original). Third, investigators who hold highly respected professional jobs concurrently with (or, in some cases, held such jobs prior to) their participation in paranormal investigation attempt to increase the legitimacy of the latter by drawing comparisons to established professional identities. By using this strategy, they attempt to create a bridge between the two identities, such that the paranormal investigator identity will beneft from the higher social status accorded to the established professional identity. Jennifer, for example, is a military veteran who sees paranormal investigation as another form of service to her community and nation. Speaking about her commitment to helping her team’s clients, she notes: There’s a saying, “Our oath of enlistment didn’t end when we exited the military,” and it’s true. My service to my country in uniform ended, but that’s it. Once you get out, it really does carry with you. It’s a lifestyle (emphasis in original). Similarly, as a retired police offer, Dennis emphasizes that he can still utilize the same skill set as a member of Upper Midwest Paranormal: I was a cop for twenty years. Investigation is in my blood. I have a very scientifc way of approaching things. You know, not just taking things at face value but digging deeper. I miss my job horribly, and this [paranormal investigation] kinda helps fll that up. I’m still doing investigations, [and] I’m still trying to read people and see if they’re bullshitting us. Investigators who are employed in “care work” (England 2005) professions, such as nurses and social workers, also highlight the affnity between the skills they use in their daily lives and those required of paranormal investigators. As one example, Sally works as a social worker and as the spiritual director at her Catholic church. She believes that both of these vocations serve her well as a paranormal investigator: As a social worker, it helps because I can touch base with the client and get a sense of how the family dynamics were working [and] if this [paranormal belief] was something they were creating to survive whatever crisis might be going on with the family. I’m also the spiritual director [at my church], so if clients asked where they should stand in terms of their [religious] faith and the paranormal, I could help them talk it out and guide them through it. It doesn’t matter if they’re Jewish or Christian or Muslim; spiritual directors were trained to have a really open mind and help people be at peace and be strong in terms of what they’re dealing with.

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Investigators who use this strategy draw a direct connection between the skills they acquired in their chosen professions and those that are useful for paranormal investigation. This strategy reduces the status difference between paranormal investigation and relatively prestigious professions by presenting the former as an extension of the latter. Collectively, these rhetorical strategies constitute identity work (Snow and Anderson 1987) that is designed to combat negative public perceptions of paranormal investigation. Interestingly, in most cases investigators use these strategies in response to imagined negative evaluations by a “generalized other” (Mead [1934]1962) rather than direct ridicule or devaluation by members of the public. As Cooley (1902) notes, “self-feelings” result not from one’s response to others’ actual evaluations of you but rather your perceptions of others’ evaluations of you. Facing the threat of negative self-evaluations in light of dismissive and even distrustful cultural attitudes about those who claim to interact with spirits, these individuals pre-emptively respond by rhetorically distancing themselves from discrediting associations and linking their paranormal investigator identity to respected professions. The end goal of this effort is to protect paranormal investigation from the taint of disreputable groups and, therefore, increase the likelihood that it would be perceived as a legitimate quasi-professional practice.

Theoretical contributions This chapter follows the trajectory of people who move from a general interest in ghosts and hauntings to participation in paranormal investigation as a quasi-professional practice. Along the way, they are socialized into their team’s dominant knowledge regime, methodology, and feeling rules. By learning the “right” ways to sense spirits, paranormal investigators begin to see themselves as “paranormal investigators,” a status that is both personally valued and potentially socially stigmatizing. To protect this identity from the taint of public distrust, they engage in identity work that rhetorically reframes the paranormal investigator as a serious researcher whose motives are grounded in socially valued goals, such as scientifc discovery and helping those in need. The analysis presented here offers an interesting new perspective on the processes of professional socialization theorized by Cahill (1999a, 1999b) and others (Haas and Shaffr 1977, 1982; Hafferty 1988; Kleinman 1981, 1984). Like the neophytes studied by these scholars, paranormal investigators must learn the “right” techniques and tools to use when searching for evidence of ghosts. Because they also directly deal with the topic of death, paranormal investigators learn “feeling rules” (Hochschild 1983) that are similar to those internalized by medical students, mortuary science students, and humanistic seminarians. These feeling rules encourage investigators to strike a balance between emotional investment and emotional detachment when relating to the ghosts that allegedly inhabit the places they investigate. However, paranormal investigators are not located in an established and legitimized professional structure, so the

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technical and emotional socialization that they receive is less standardized than that of recognized professions. Moreover, investigators face social stigmatization because the practice of communicating with spirits, or claiming to possess evidence of their existence, is widely disregarded within the dominant culture. Due to documented instances of fraud and the widespread representation of paranormal investigation as a feld of entertainment, actual investigators face an uphill battle in carving out a quasi-professional status for their identity. They negotiate this stigmatization by engaging in various forms of identity work (Snow and Anderson 1987) that draws rhetorical boundaries between the “paranormal investigator” identity and potentially discrediting associations. To the extent that they protect this identity from such threats, they can then proudly self-identify as “paranormal investigators.” Confdent in their identity and expertise, they direct their efforts toward fnding evidence of ghosts, as explained in Chapter Three.

References Becker, Howard S., Blanche Geer, Everett C. Hughes, and Anselm L. Strauss. 1961. Boys in White: Student Culture in Medical School. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Books. Braude, Ann. 2001. Radical Spirits: Spiritualism and Women’s Rights in Nineteenth-Century America. 2nd ed. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press. Cahill, Spencer E. 1999a. “The Boundaries of Professionalization: The Case of North American Funeral Direction.” Symbolic Interaction 22(2):105–19. ––––––. 1999b. “Emotional Capital and Professional Socialization: The Case of Mortuary Science Students (and Me).” Social Psychology Quarterly 62(2):101–16. Cooley, Charles H. 1902. Human Nature and the Social Order. New York: Scribner. Eaton, Marc. 2018. “Paranormal Investigation: The Scientist and the Sensitive.” Pp. 76–94. In: The Supernatural in Society, Culture, and History, edited by D. Waskul and M. Eaton. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press. England, Paula. 2005. “Emerging Theories of Care Work.” Annual Review of Sociology 31(1):381–99. Fine, Gary Alan. 1979. “Small Groups and Culture Creation: The Idioculture of Little League Baseball Teams.” American Sociological Review 44(5):733–45. ––––––. 2010. “The Sociology of the Local: Action and Its Publics.” Sociological Theory 28(4):355–76. Gieryn, Thomas F. 1983. “Boundary-Work and the Demarcation of Science from NonScience: Strains and Interests in Professional Ideologies of Scientists.” American Sociological Review 48(6):781–95. Haas, Jack and William Shaffr. 1977. “The Professionalization of Medical Students: Developing Competence and a Cloak of Competence.” Symbolic Interaction 1(1):71–88. ––––––. 1982. “Taking on the Role of Doctor: A Dramaturgical Analysis of Professionalization.” Symbolic Interaction 5(2):187–203. Hafferty, Frederic W. 1988. “Cadaver Stories and the Emotional Socialization of Medical Students.” Journal of Health and Social Behavior 29(4):344–56. Hill, Sharon A. 2017. Scientifcal Americans: The Culture of Amateur Paranormal Researchers. Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company, Inc. Hochschild, Arlie R. 1983. The Managed Heart: The Commercialization of Human Feeling. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.

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Kleinman, Sherryl. 1981. “Making Professionals into ‘Persons’: Discrepancies in Traditional and Humanistic Expectations of Professional Identity.” Sociology of Work and Occupations 8(1):61–87. ––––––. 1984. Equals before God: Seminarians as Humanistic Professionals. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Lois, Jennifer. 2001. “Peaks and Valleys: The Gendered Emotional Culture of Edgework.” Gender and Society 15(3):381–406. Loseke, Donileen R. and Spencer E. Cahill. 1986. “Actors in Search of a Character: Student Social Workers’ Quest for Professional Identity.” Symbolic Interaction 9(2):245–58. Luhrmann, Tanya M. 2012. When God Talks Back: Understanding the American Evangelical Relationship with God. New York: Vintage Books. Mead, George Herbert. [1934]1962. Mind, Self, and Society from the Standpoint of a Social Behaviorist, edited by C.W. Morris. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Molle, Andrea and Christopher Bader. 2013. “‘Paranormal Science’ from America to Italy: A Case of Cultural Homogenization.” Pp. 121–38. In: The Ashgate Research Companion to Paranormal Cultures, edited by O. Jenzen and S.R. Munt. Farnham, UK: Ashgate. Smith, Allen C. and Sherryl Kleinman. 1989. “Managing Emotions in Medical School: Students’ Contacts with the Living and the Dead.” Social Psychology Quarterly 52(1):56–69. Snow, David A. and Leon Anderson. 1987. “Identity Work among the Homeless: The Verbal Construction and Avowal of Personal Identities.” American Journal of Sociology 92(6):1336–71. Weisberg, Barbara. 2004. Talking to the Dead: Kate and Maggie Fox and the Rise of Spiritualism. New York: HarperOne. Woofftt, Robin. 2006. The Language of Mediums and Psychics: The Social Organization of Everyday Miracles. London: Ashgate. Woofftt, Robin and Hannah Gilbert. 2008. “Discourse, Rhetoric, and the Accomplishment of Mediumship in Stage Demonstrations.” Mortality 13(3):222–40. Woofftt, Robin, Clare Jackson, Darren Reed, Yasushi Ohashi, and Isaac Hughes. 2013. “Self-identity, Authenticity, and the Other: The Spirits and Audience Management in Stage Mediumship.” Language and Communication 33(2):93–105.

3

Discerning evidence of spirits

Once paranormal investigators are properly socialized into the “right” ways of sensing spirits, they begin to apply these rules during paranormal investigations. This chapter explores how investigators defne sensory, extrasensory, and technological sources of knowledge as “evidence.” The determination that a spirit is (or is not) present in a setting is a product of face-to-face negotiations of meaning during moments when something seemingly anomalous occurs. Paranormal investigators undertake interpretive work to bring individualized experiences into the collective awareness of their teammates, where the group collectively assesses the evidentiary value of these experiences and claims. This interpretive work occurs in the context of what Goffman (1961) refers to as encounters. In Goffman’s terminology, encounters are constituted by an “ecological huddle” (18) in which persons within proximity of one another interact in a “focused gathering” (17) in regard to a particular object of attention. Their mutual engagement with this object of attention may involve ritualized bracketing of the beginning and ending of the encounter, and is likely to produce a “‘we rationale,’…a sense of the single thing that we are doing together at the time” (18; emphasis in original). Participants in an encounter collectively construct a shared defnition of the situation. This is accomplished through the implementation of “rules of irrelevance” (Goffman 1961:19), which participants use to direct their attention toward certain aspects of the encounter while disattending other aspects. These rules of irrelevance identify what should be considered “out of frame” (25) and therefore not a source of meaning in the developing defnition of the situation. In so doing, though, Goffman (1961:26) notes that “the set of rules which tells us what should not be given relevance tells us also what we are to treat as real.” When participants in an encounter collectively adhere to all of these rules, their individual perceptions are oriented toward a shared perception that takes on “the thickness of reality” (Goffman 1961:41) as participants become engrossed in the defnition of the situation that they have produced and maintained through interpretive work.

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Interpretive work during paranormal investigations At certain points in each investigation, participants direct their attention toward a mutual object of interest and attempt to discern whether something paranormal is occurring in the moment. One such instance is a formalized encounter, in which investigators attempt to directly communicate with a spirit using techniques such as electronic voice phenomena (EVP) sessions, spirit box or Ovilus sessions, role plays, and other such intentional tactics. Another such instance is a reactive encounter, in which a sudden sensory, extrasensory, or technological event stimulates an attempt to determine whether a spirit is present. For example, investigators may perceive a sound that does not seem to be caused by a natural source, report sudden psychic awareness of an entity, or note a fuctuation on one or more electronic device. In both types of encounters, paranormal investigators attempt to defne emergent events as “evidence” of a spiritual presence or, alternatively, as a non-paranormal event that can be “debunked” and dismissed. In their efforts to make such a determination, paranormal investigators engage in three forms of interpretive work: somatic work, discernment work, and techno-empiricist work.

Somatic work As conceptualized by Vannini et al. (2012:19), somatic work refers to: the range of linguistic and alinguistic refexive experiences and activities by which individuals interpret, create, extinguish, maintain, interrupt, and/or communicate somatic sensations that are congruent with personal, interpersonal, and/or cultural notions of moral, aesthetic, and/or logical desirability. In other words, somatic work involves the words and actions through which we understand sensory experiences and communicate these experiences to others. According to this perspective, the meanings of physiological sensations emerge as a consequence of “sense-making practices” (Vannini et al. 2012), processes of individual and collective interpretation and communication that draw upon available semiotic resources to quite literally make sense of sensations. This interpretive labor is performed in accordance with the “somatic rules” (19) that are dominant within the group engaged in sense-making and internalized by group members through processes of “sensory socialization” (49). Like Goffman’s (1961) rules of irrelevance and relevance, somatic rules guide group members’ perceptions of sensations by distinguishing those that should be integrated into sense-making practices from those that should be disattended. Somatic rules also guide group participants’ contextually appropriate performances of sensory experiences, whether pleasurable (Vannini et al. 2010) or painful (Heath 2002). Generally, those engaged in somatic work interpret and perform sensations in ways that conform to “common sense” within the group, the “widely shared way of making sense of sensations”

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(Vannini et al. 2012:128), thereby maintaining the “somatic order” (127) of this group. In the context of paranormal investigations, team members trigger processes of somatic work when they bring to the attention of other investigators some sensation that they have experienced and not immediately been able to defne as normal. Most often, these sensory experiences include sounds, visual stimuli, or physical sensations such as a touch or a pinch. When such sensations are brought to the attention of team members, these individuals either explicitly or implicitly solicit “somatic accounts” (Vannini et al. 2012:56) from the experient. These somatic accounts externalize the sensation, moving it from the individual, invisible realm to the collective, discursive realm. Once the sensation is externalized to the group, it can be integrated into the group’s ongoing somatic work (see also Ironside 2018). More credence is given to a paranormal interpretation of reported sensations when they occur in the context of a formalized encounter, in which the investigators are explicitly soliciting sensible evidence (such as knocks, touches, or movement) on the part of spirits. However, reported sensations are not automatically assumed to be evidence of a ghostly presence. Instead, the evidentiary value of these sensations is the outcome of iterative processes of description, action, and interpretation, through which paranormal investigators teams either defne these sensations as potential evidence or “debunk” the experiences as naturally occurring non-paranormal events. Ultimately, both outcomes maintain the plausibility of the underlying ontological belief that ghosts exist. Instances of somatic work take on a ritualized character when they occur within the context of an EVP session or another formalized encounter. In these sessions, investigators typically frst state their names and express their desire to communicate with spirits. After these introductory comments, they request that any spirits who are present make themselves known through some kind of auditory, visual, or tactile sign. One instance of apparent response to a sensory request occurs during an EVP session in the shower room of an abandoned prison that I investigate with Upper Midwest Paranormal. Prior to this investigation, the team had heard that women sometimes felt as though their hair was being pulled or their butts pinched in the shower room, so when they arrive in this part of the prison they decide to entice the spirits. Heidi attempts to solicit such contact by saying, “If something comes over to me and pulls my hair I will take all my clothes off.” After waiting for a couple of minutes, Heidi suddenly announces, “What the heck?!? It felt like something just touched the top of my head!” This pronouncement triggers somatic work in which Heidi describes the sensation while her teammates attempt to explain the cause of the sensation. “Did something fall from the ceiling?” Samantha asks, and Matthew follows by inquiring, “Is there something on you? A bug or a spider?” He turns on his fashlight and walks over to Heidi, who points to the top of her head and says, “Right here. It felt like something brushed across my hair from ear to ear.” Matthew inspects her head but is unable to fnd any insects or other natural causes for the sensation. He returns to his seat and uses his forward-looking infrared (FLIR) thermal imaging

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camera to scan the room for any living creatures that may have caused the sensation, such as a bat fying past Heidi’s head. Thinking that the sensation may be caused by something dripping on her head in that particular location, I suggest that we switch positions to see if the sensation was caused by a natural source or by a spirit who specifcally wanted to touch her. Heidi complies, and soon after we switch positions she exclaims, “Goddamn it! Something brushed across my face!” “Well, it wasn’t a bat because I didn’t see anything,” Matthew immediately replies, quickly dismissing one potential natural explanation for the sensation. “What does it feel like?” I ask. “It just feels like something physical, like if my hair were to tickle my face,” she responds. “Like a spider web?” Matthew inquires. “Well, kind of,” says Heidi. She stands up from her chair and walks across the room to stand by Matthew. “But not like a spider web,” she continues. “More like if you took your fngers and went like this,” she says as she lightly runs the backs of her fngernails across Matthew’s forehead. Once she returns to her seat, the team begins asking the spirit to prove its presence through other physical manifestations, such as touching another investigator or knocking on an object in the room. After several more minutes in which no such events occur, Matthew ends the EVP session and instructs the team to move to another location. In this instance, Heidi’s claims that she was touched are followed by somatic work in which she attempts to describe the sensations to the others present. When she realizes that her description of the second incident is not suffciently conveying her sensory experience, she reenacts the sensation for Matthew so that he can have direct sensory knowledge of what she felt. By describing and enacting her sensations, Heidi externalizes her personal experiences and transforms them into “collective expressions” (Fine 1995:265) that can then be integrated into the ensuing sense-making process. As with the medical patients studied by Heath (2002), Heidi’s enactment of the sensation upon Matthew’s body animates her subjective experience, allowing him to experience the unique sensory qualities of a light caress upon the forehead. In conjunction with this action, her descriptions and subsequent efforts to determine the sources of these sensations constitute a “joint somatic act” (Vannini et al. 2012:56) in which everyone present (including me) proposes a natural explanation before dismissing these explanations in light of Heidi’s insistence that the sensations were akin to physical contact from a human being. While Heidi’s experience is emblematic of the kind of somatic work done when such sensations occur in the context of a formalized encounter, in reality investigators often report such sensory experiences when they are not explicitly seeking such things. One such instance occurs when I investigate a nineteenthcentury opera house with the Prairieland Paranormal Researchers. During the walk-through of the location before the actual investigation begins, the manager of the opera house tells the team that multiple employees reported seeing a dog walking on the landing area behind the balcony. The manager suggests that this may be the spirit of a dog owned by the former caretaker of the opera house, who sometimes brought his dog to work.

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Later that evening, most of the team members and I congregate in a frstfoor lobby that has a view of the landing behind the balcony. As the team members are discussing where in the building they would like to investigate next, an investigator named Carol rushes up to the group and excitedly declares, “I saw the dog!” “In the balcony?” Diane asks, to which Carol replies, “Mm hmm.” Attempting to clarify Carol’s vantage point relative to the balcony landing, Diane inquires, “Where were you when you saw it?” Carol clarifes, “Right below the balcony.” Seeking a plausible explanation, Diane suggests that Carol may have seen a shadow from a car’s headlights coming through the windows behind the balcony. Rejecting this explanation, Carol responds, “Yeah, but they have blinds on them. And these here [the windows in the lobby] have those heavy red velvet curtains all the way across.” “So you didn’t hear anything? You just saw something move, like a shadow?” I ask. “Yeah,” Carol affrms. “Anita and I were standing right over there and I was looking up, and I saw something walk right past the bannister post, about three feet either side, and then it was gone.” “That’s cool!” Becky states in support of Carol’s claim. Anita offers to head up to the landing and walk across to help Carol determine if the shadow was large enough to be an adult human. As Anita walks across the landing, Carol calls up, “What I saw didn’t come up over the railing.” “Do you want me to crawl?” Anita offers. Laughing, Carol says, “Yes, please!” Complying, Anita drops to her hands and knees and crawls back across the landing. This action prompts Carol to exclaim, “Yeah! It was more like that!” “So it would have to be dog height,” Becky emphasizes, and Carol concurs, stating, “Yeah, it was a kid or a dog.” In these instances of somatic work, the team member who reports the experience initially attempts to verbally clarify the sensory qualities and location of this experience. Other team members then ask clarifying questions and suggest reasonable natural explanations. This prompts the experients to reiterate the unusual qualities of these events: in Heidi’s case, the fact that sensations on her head feel like the light touch of human fngers; for Carol, the short stature and shadowy quality of the fgure. Then, by externalizing the sensory experience while undercutting alternative explanations, the team members fnally frame the experiences as at least potentially paranormal. Investigators perceive claims of such sensory experiences as more credible when they correspond in time with unusual activity indicated on one or more technological device. In one such instance, I join fve investigators for an investigation at a reportedly haunted hotel called the Highwayman Inn. This group includes two members of Upper Midwest Paranormal, Samantha and Tommy, as well as investigators from two other teams: Teresa and Sue from Shadow Catchers Paranormal and Ted from S.O.U.L. (an acronym for Scientifc Observation of Unknown Lifeforms). Jessi, the hotel’s caretaker, also participates in the investigation. The group slowly moves through the hotel lobby, fnally stopping at a lounge area that is furnished with several couches and small tables as well as a pool table. As soon as we arrive at the couches, Samantha announces, “This is different than over there,” referring to the hotel

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lobby. “Yeah, it’s a different feeling,” Teresa adds. Jessi affrms their interpretation, saying, “That’s usually where you get touched. You’ll actually feel them.” Intrigued, Ted walks over to the couches with his oscilloscope and electromagnetic feld (EMF) detector and immediately declares, “Yeah, we got activity right here!” For the next several minutes, the investigators huddle around a small table sitting between two couches. As they congregate, they interweave accounts of personal sensory experiences with Ted’s claims that unusual electromagnetic waveforms are emanating from this particular location. “Can you feel it?” Samantha asks, holding her right hand palm down about a foot above the tabletop. Teresa stretches her hand forward and excitedly says, “Oh, you can feel it right here! Right here!” “The tingling?” Samantha asks Teresa, hoping to see if they are sharing the same sensation. Teresa quickly responds, “Oh, it’s tingling terrible” (emphasis in original). Looking at the waveform on the screen of his oscilloscope, Ted interjects, “It’s going in and out.” Teresa replies, “Yep. It’s like they’ll touch you and then it goes away,” implying that she could sense the electromagnetic fuctuation through her hand. “Marc, come here,” Samantha requests. I walk forward and stretch out my left hand over the small table until I am nearly touching Samantha and Teresa’s hands. “Can you feel that? It’s gentle and cobwebby,” asks Samantha. However, I cannot feel any tingling or other unusual sensation and tell them so. Proposing an explanation, Teresa replies, “Maybe it just likes women.” Wanting to test this theory, Tommy walks over to the table and places his right hand over the table. In a surprised tone, he says, “Yes, actually I can feel it. There’s a difference in, like, air density or something between here and over there” (emphasis in original). Describing the sensation to me, Samantha explains, “You know how, like, when a balloon’s got a lot of static and you hold it by your arm hair and your arm hair stands up? That’s what it feels like.” Continuing, she claims, “There’s somebody sitting right here. I don’t think it’s anything bad.” “No, I don’t think it’s bad at all,” replies Ted. “I think it’s probably a human consciousness.” Pausing, he continues, “There’s a bio-feldlooking [wave] pattern permeating this whole area.” In the context of the somatic order of paranormal investigation, it is “common sense” (Vannini et al. 2012:128) that cold spots—localized places where the air temperature is noticeably lower than the surrounding area—are a consequence of spirits harnessing energy from the environment in order to manifest themselves. Building off of this subcultural theory, Sue notes, “Got a cool breeze right here on my arm.” Ted walks to where Sue is standing and confrms her sensation, saying, “Oh, I do feel it! There’s defnitely a cool spot right here” (emphasis in original). Joining in, Teresa waves her right hand around and excitedly proclaims, “My hand’s getting real cold now! It felt like an air conditioning unit was on for just a second.” Pointing his oscilloscope and EMF detector in her direction, Ted states, “It’s off to your right,” to which Teresa responds, “That’s what I’m saying. It’s right here.” Continuing to look at his equipment, Ted reports a few moments later, “It just collapsed. It’s gone.”

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Confrming this with her own sensory claim, Teresa agrees, stating, “Yep. It’s not cool here anymore.” Refecting on the experience, she then announces, “This is why I wanted to investigate tonight without a lot of equipment. The feel. Tonight, the best evidence is our own body” (emphasis in original). With that, the group and I move from the lounge area into a space near the restrooms to continue the investigation. In this instance, the investigators develop a shared understanding that they are in the presence of a disembodied human consciousness. Unlike the experiences reported by Heidi and Becky, in this case several investigators experience unusual sensations at the same time and place. They provide initial somatic accounts—tingling, static, and feeling cold—and ask if others are experiencing the same sensation. In addition, the investigators work together to identify specifc locations—both in the building and on their bodies—where these sensations are occurring. By describing and locating these sensory experiences, the investigators construct a “working consensus” (Goffman 1959) that something strange seems to be happening. This interpretation is strengthened through the integration of technological data, in the form of EMF readings, into the investigators’ somatic work. The ultimate outcome of this interpretive process is a shared understanding that at least one spiritual presence is in their midst.

Discernment work In Christian theological tradition, discernment generally means the ability (often framed as a “gift” from God) to determine whether spirits are infuencing a person and, if so, whether these spirits are good (e.g., angels) or bad (e.g., demons). Traditionally, powers of discernment were considered to be quite rare and “given” only to the most faithful (Lienhard 1980). However, Luhrmann (2012) argues that as connection to God has been democratized through, frst, the Reformation and, more recently, charismatic churches in which God “speaks” to congregants, the concept of discernment has taken on a new meaning. These churches encourage members to watch and listen for God’s presence in their everyday lives. Through daily prayer, believers begin to “train the mind in such a way that they…learn to identify some thoughts as God’s voice, some images as God’s suggestions, some sensations as God’s touch or the response to his nearness” (Luhrmann 2012:xxi). As also noted by Laubach (2004) in his study of paranormal beliefs, congregants of charismatic churches give more credence to thoughts that are spontaneous and seem unrelated to their own ideas, as well as those that seem related to subsequent events in the world (i.e., are “proven” by later events). Some especially fervent practitioners of prayer experience “sensory overrides” (Luhrmann 201:209), hallucinatory episodes involving the perception of sensory experiences (sights, smells, hearing sounds, feelings of electricity, etc.) despite the absence of any apparent material causes for these sensations. Luhrmann’s analysis of discernment is useful when considering how sensitives on paranormal investigation teams warrant extrasensory knowledge claims.

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Adapting the concept of discernment to a symbolic interactionist framework, I argue that discernment can be conceptualized as a discursive and performative accomplishment. The authenticity of a sensitive’s claimed abilities is the outcome of discernment work, which includes the verbal and non-verbal techniques by which sensitives produce and sustain an impression that they are in contact with a spiritual entity. These techniques take three main forms. First, sensitives utilize what I refer to as “discursive displays.” In these “speech events” (Woofftt 2006), sensitives use phrases such as “I’m getting” or “I see” as well as direct reported speech, in which they report the spirit’s words, as evidence that they are in touch with the spirit world (Woofftt 2006). Understanding that these efforts may not always prove successful, sensitives also engage in “stake management” (Potter 1996): a display of minimal commitment to a question or statement, such that if recipients reject its premise, the speaker can immediately abandon the topic with minimal impact upon their perceived credibility. Lastly, sensitives report or perform “exhibitions of recipiency” (Woofftt 2006:113). These may include heavy breathing, whispering, long pauses, and even physical manifestations that they frame as evidence of contact with the spirit world (Woofftt and Gilbert 2008; Woofftt et al. 2013). If discernment work is successful, it results in an impression that a sensitive genuinely possesses extrasensory abilities and therefore can produce reliable evidence of the existence of ghosts. In the remainder of this section, each of these forms of discernment work is illustrated by an example. Discursive displays

As with the mediums studied by Woofftt (2006), sensitives who participate in paranormal investigation frequently couch their discursive displays of spirit communication in passive language, thereby presenting themselves as recipients of knowledge gained by extrasensory means. One such instance occurs while I am investigating an abandoned sanatorium with a sensitive named Gabriel and other members of Upper Midwest Paranormal. We sit near the entrance to a room where a woman reportedly killed her baby and then hung herself. A short time after beginning an EVP session in this location, Gabriel claims he is telepathically receiving information regarding the actual circumstances of the reported murder-suicide that occurred in the room. “Her baby was stillborn,” he says. “She got severely depressed, threw the baby down the well, and then went and hung herself. Not because she did anything wrong but because she lost the baby.” I ask if he is receiving this information from the spirit of the woman who committed suicide, and Gabriel responds, “I don’t know where it comes from. It just came into my head.” Through this choice of phrasing, Gabriel presents himself as a conduit for direct evidence from the spirit world. Sensitives also discursively display their abilities by providing detailed descriptions of spirits. By including details about what they see, hear, and feel, sensitives present spirit contact as simply another form of interpersonal communication. To further support the claim that they are in direct contact with

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spirits, sensitives frequently intersperse their statements with direct or indirect reported speech. Woofftt (2006) notes that this is a common strategy used by mediums to portray themselves as being in direct communication with spirits. One example of this strategy occurs during the investigation of the Grossman House, a modest home in which Charles and Mary Grossman had raised their family during the late nineteenth century. Prior to an investigation by the Ghost Investigators, sensitives Allison and Jeremiah conduct a walk-through in which they attempt to discern the identities of the spirits that they believe are present in the home. When they are fnished, they report to the team and me what they had saw and heard during the walk-through: Allison: I went into the little parlor area and hey!—I can see a man sitting on a couch and he’s got a real round face and he’s holding a newspaper. He’s kinda gruff; he isn’t very approachable at all. This is his place, so he wasn’t very pleased with me just marching in there. He was kinda like “Why are you here?!?”…And then also downstairs is a nervous woman who might be Mary. She didn’t identify herself. She’ll just kinda stand there and wring her hands. And she’s not allowed to talk; the man won’t let her talk. She says “I’m not supposed to talk” (emphasis in original). Jeremiah: Mr. Grossman is just a cantankerous old coot. He’s about business and that’s it. A couple of the women [members of the Ghost Investigators] were commenting about the wallpaper and saying, “Wow, I wouldn’t have done this,” and his exact words were, “Pffft, what do they know? They’re just women.” And when I heard that I started to laugh because he had dissed them from the other side. In this report, both Allison and Jeremiah speak as though they actually saw and heard the spirits through extrasensory means. Indeed, Jeremiah even emphasizes that he is reporting the “exact words” of Mr. Grossman. By providing such detailed descriptions and reporting the words used by spirits, these sensitives hope to establish the authenticity of their extrasensory abilities and, therefore, the evidentiary value of their claims. Stake management

Despite such efforts, sensitives also recognize that they might make claims that cannot be proven or may even be undercut by disconfrming information. They therefore engage in stake management. Woofftt (2000, 2006) reports that this is a common technique among mediums more generally. In the context of paranormal investigation, it takes the forms of presenting vague or multiple descriptions of a spirit, emphasizing uncertainty about information sensitives believe they are receiving through extrasensory means, and abandoning a claim if it seems to be contradicted by facts. During a séance, Allison says that she can “see” a woman with her hair up in a bun, yet she describes the woman in vague and multiple ways over the course

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of a few minutes. Initially, she asks the homeowner, Rob, if there is a picture in the home of a woman with her hair in a bun. He replies, “Yes,” so Allison then inquires, “Is her hair brown?” Rob responds, “Um, it’s dark. I can’t tell from the photos.” This prompts Allison to adjust her initial claim, stating, “I’m not seeing a shade of brown, but because it’s [the woman’s hair] dark I just erred on the side of [calling it] brown.” She then continues, “Her blouse, I’m seeing white—I take that back. It could be gray or in that family. I’m just seeing things in black and white.” Turning to the woman’s facial features, Allison next asks Rob, “Would you say her cheekbones are higher?” Before Rob can respond, Allison interjects, saying, “Okay, I’m just gonna tell you what I see. It looks like her cheekbones are higher [and] her face is fuller.” She lightly exhales, as though she is struggling to discern some detail of the woman’s face, and then continues, “I can’t see her eyes. It’s just like a dark shadow. So I’m guessing maybe they’re a little deeper set.” Attributing her diffculties to the deceased woman’s reluctance to make herself fully visible, Allison concludes with the statement, “I don’t know why she isn’t coming forward enough.” Rob offers limited support for the description, saying “Yeah, I have somebody in mind that that could possibly be.” Seemingly sensing that Rob’s tepid response may indicate some doubt about the authenticity of her sensitive abilities, Allison quickly replies, “I’m not gonna tell you anything I’m not actually seeing, okay? It’s just that she keeps coming back and forth.” With this statement, she once again presents her vacillating descriptions as the consequence of the spirit’s coy behavior. By indicating that her inconsistent interpretations result from the spirit’s reluctance rather than any failure on her part, Allison reframes these inconsistencies as evidence that she is, in fact, able to see spirits in her mind’s eye. According to this logic, it is precisely her ability to discern the presence of this spirit that is causing the problems. Sensitives also indicate their uncertainty about—and therefore their minimal commitment to—extrasensory claims by including hedging terms such as “possibly,” “maybe,” and “might” in their descriptions of spirits. A clear example of this strategy occurs during Upper Midwest Paranormal’s investigation of a mid-nineteenth-century building that used to be a college dormitory. While the rest of the team members set up their equipment in the location, Dennis walks through the building and notes the locations and descriptions of all the spirits he discerns. Before the team begins their investigation, Matthew asks Dennis to share his sensitive impressions. Dennis’ report is littered with hedging phrases that pre-emptively distance him from these claims in case they are later proven wrong: Downstairs in the northwestern room of the basement, I picked up on what seemed to be a male. Maybe twenty [years old], thin build, short dark hair. Had grayish or bluish shirt and pants. I think he was [an] intelligent [spirit], but I’m not 100% positive…. And then on the second foor, right near room 205, [I sensed an] older male, maybe late ffties or sixties. Possibly balding. Possibly a worker here at one point. It seems like he minds his own

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business and does his own thing…. And in the main room [on the frst foor], there may be a female. Formftting dress, blond hair in a bun. Maybe from the 1900s. I could see her over by the freplace (emphasis added). By combining specifc details and hedging terms, Dennis simultaneously gives the impression that his sensitive abilities are strong enough to discern particular hair styles or types of dress, yet so prone to error that he feels it is necessary to indicate his lack of confdence. Whether or not by design, he constructs representations that are detailed but also non-specifc, thus giving the impression that he is indeed “seeing” these spirits but preventing any single spirit from being defnitively identifed. Occasionally, sensitives simply abandon a claim if they become aware that it is disproven by objective facts. I observe one such instance during the same séance described above. Shortly after Allison describes the female spirit whose hair was in a bun, Jeremiah claims that he is observing with his mind’s eye a scene from the distant past that occurred at this home. “Someone said ‘Fathers home!’” he begins. “And I hear a dog heading down the stairs, going to the front door. I’m getting like a beagle-type dog. He races downstairs, barking all the way to the door” (emphasis in original). Tapping his fngers on a bedside table to mimic the sound of a slow gallop, Jeremiah adds, “And you can hear the clompity, clomp, clomp of the horses coming up the drive.” Based on the fact that horse-drawn carriages were phased out as a primary mode of transportation by the early part of the twentieth century, Rob suggests, “So it’s gotta be pre-Twenties, then.” Jeremiah concurs, stating, “Yeah, I’m going with early 1900s” (emphasis in original). “What’s the room look like?” asks Jeremiah’s wife. He closes his eyes and slightly tilts his head to indicate that he is trying to focus on something he is seeing in his mind. After a few moments, he states, “I’m seeing more browns and blues than what I see currently, color-wise.” This catches the attention of Rob, who had researched the history of the home as part of his attempts to restore it to its late-nineteenth-century appearance. “Hmmm, browns and blues?” he asks, and Jeremiah reiterates, “Yes, yes. I see more browns and blues.” “Okay,” replies Rob, “That would put you more in the Fifties and Sixties then.” Sensing that his claim about the wall colors contradicts the era indicated by his earlier statement about the horse-drawn carriage, Jeremiah quickly attempts to explain his error. He interjects, “Well, it’s just so fast,” implying that the mental images he receives from the other side fit so rapidly across his mind’s eye that he sometimes makes such mistakes. To redirect the séance participants’ attention back to his original claim, he immediately restates, “We watch the dog run downstairs and then you hear the door open. The women didn’t open the door but she’s the one that said ‘Father’s home.’” With this, Jeremiah concludes his reporting on the incident by abandoning the disproven claim about wall color and reminding participants of his earlier, unverifable story about the dog. To further invest the other participants in the credibility of this tale, he rhetorically expands the experiential scope of his

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extrasensory claim by stating that “we,” the séance participants, collectively experienced this vision. These stake-management strategies perform an important function for sensitives. By minimizing the impact of inaccurate claims upon the perceived authenticity of their claimed extrasensory abilities, they protect the sensitives (to some degree, at least) from being disregarded as frauds. However, they also undercut the accuracy of sensitives’ abilities and thereby play into the larger subcultural tendency to treat extrasensory claims as inferior to claims based on technology. Therefore, they are a risky strategy, particularly for sensitives who are members of science-dominant and integrated teams. Recipiency displays

Sensitives perform a third form of discernment work through the use of “recipiency displays.” As described by Woofftt (2006), recipency displays involve verbal or non-verbal presentations of forms of extrasensory evidence that are otherwise unobservable. In one form of recipiency display, sensitives use nonlinguistic vocalizations, such as heavy breathing or extended silences, to indicate their emotional connection with spirits. In the middle of the séance, for example, Jeremiah stops speaking for nearly twenty seconds. During this time, he begins breathing heavily, which is not in keeping with his breathing patterns earlier in the séance. Eventually, his wife asks, “Jeremiah, what are you hearing?,” thus indicating to the other participants that his silence is indicative of receiving spirit communications. He exhales heavily and reports, “She just keeps repeating, ‘It doesn’t belong.’” Softening his voice to a whisper, he asks the spirit, “What doesn’t belong?” Again, he sits silently, as though he is listening to her reply. After a few moments, Jeremiah fnally states, “It’s the bed. It doesn’t belong. She’s very adamant about that” (emphasis in original). With a sheepish laugh, the homeowner, Rob, admits that he had purchased the bed and brought it into the home. In this instance of discernment work, Jeremiah’s heavy breathing and extended pauses produce physically observable displays of recipiency. Although such a performance was less necessary after Rob confrmed Jeremiah’s claim about the bed, his breathing and silences nonetheless signify to other participant an emotional connection to the female spirit, thus adding an air of authenticity to his claims. Occasionally, sensitives physically enact what they claim to be seeing in their mind’s eye. During Upper Midwest Paranormal’s investigation of the Uptown Theater, Jerry suddenly stops at the sump pump room in the basement. As soon as he enters the room, Jerry declares, “When I walked in, I started getting intense nausea [and I] started choking. I got the sense of some kind of really violent interaction in there. I felt it right away, as soon as I stepped in.” He pauses, staring at the cinder block wall in front of us as though he is watching a movie. After a moment, he states, “Yeah,” as though he had just witnessed the violent encounter using his extrasensory abilities. He

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continues, saying, “Guy got his head bashed a couple of times against the wall. Stabbed too.” “In here?” Matthew asks. Stepping forward and pointing at the wall, Jerry clarifes, “Right here. Smashed.” Mimicking the motions of grabbing a person by the head and beating them against the wall, he raises his voice slightly and says, “Bang, bang, bang!” Immediately following this gesture, he makes three quick stabbing motions with his right hand and continues, “And then stab, stab, stab!” Stepping back from the wall, Jerry comments, “I’m feeling violence and chaos, and I’m dizzy.” Through his enactment of the violent encounter, Jerry externalizes his extrasensory visions. In conjunction with his use of silence (in the form of staring at the wall for a moment), the play-acting of this murderous incident adds to the authenticity of his discernment work by enabling the other investigators to vicariously witness that which Jerry reports seeing in his mind’s eye. Collectively, the discernment work performed by sensitives positions their knowledge claims such that if any corroborative evidence or support from other investigators is introduced into the interaction, these claims would take on an aura of evidentiary value. These various forms of discernment work accomplish two goals for sensitives making evidentiary claims in the context of paranormal investigations. On the one hand, if sensitives make such claims and corroborating evidence is later discovered through the process of investigation, the sensitives’ claims to possess extrasensory abilities are seemingly confrmed. On the other hand, if this does not occur, these strategies protect sensitives’ reputations from signifcant harm by creating distance between the sensitives and the claims they make. Additionally, if disconfrming evidence arises, sensitives minimize the damage of this new information by offering explanations for their inaccuracy that ultimately position such errors as further evidence of their extrasensory communication with the spirit world.

Techno-empiricist work The fnal and most subculturally legitimated means of sensing spirits involves the use of technological tools to measure or record data that paranormal investigators then interpret as evidence. Paranormal investigators who rely upon such tools perceive technologically gathered data as the most objective means of determining the presence of spirits. However, the evidentiary value of data is also a product of processes of interpretation. By engaging in what I refer to as “techno-empiricist work,” paranormal investigators transform technological data into “evidence.” This process is obscured by the fact that both within the subculture and the broader culture, numerical data are generally treated as objective and uninterpreted facts. As Latour and Woolgar (1986:176) note in regard to the production of scientifc facts, “the process of construction involves the use of certain devices whereby all traces of construction are made extremely diffcult to detect.” Once the constructedness of a given “fact” is obscured, it takes on a quality of “out-there-ness” (Latour and Woolgar

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1986:182). In other words, it is perceived as simply a refection of external reality rather than a product of human negotiations over the meaning and signifcance of data. Moreover, such data is presented in an “empiricist discourse” (Gilbert and Mulkay 1984) that portrays scientifc conclusions as unmediated representations of empirical facts. Techno-empiricist claims take on added importance in the context of paranormal beliefs because the very existence of paranormal phenomena is doubted by institutionalized science. As a result, those who research phenomena such as psychokinesis (Collins and Pinch 1979), crop circles (Ghidina 2019), and ghosts (Hanks 2016a, 2016b; Hill 2017), emphasize investigative methods and discourses that mimic those of established scientifc felds. When paranormal investigators make such claims in the absence of other forms of evidence, they initially label as “anomalous” any technological data that signifcantly differs from patterns observed before and after the “anomaly.” For example, anomalies may include sudden “spikes” in electromagnetic frequencies or sudden drops in temperature that are not readily traceable to a natural source. Anomalies can also include strange sounds on audio recordings as well as images in photographs or on video recordings. These data are not automatically defned as “evidence”; rather, this determination is made only after investigators undertake techno-empiricist work that concludes with a shared determination that the anomalies may be evidence of a haunting. Later in the investigation of the Highwayman Inn previously described in this chapter, I join Jessi and the investigators in a game room area on the ground foor. It was in this location during a previous investigation (described in more detail in Chapter Five) that Samantha experienced strong waves of nausea and sadness, which she attributed to an attack by one or more malevolent spirits. As Ted walks through the room, he holds his oscilloscope at waist height and slowly sweeps it back and forth in front of him. Looking down at the screen, he suddenly stops and says, “This area around here is somewhere I’d expect something to occur. There’s defnitely a high level of unusual-looking EMF right here right now. It doesn’t look like a normal sixty cycles at all.” Noticing where Ted is standing, Samantha calls out, “Yeah, that’s exactly where it was,” with “it” referring to her previous physiological and emotional experience. “It was like something shaved my stomach lining away and gave me a Charlie horse right in my gut. And then I almost burst into tears.” Affrming that her experience made sense in light of the empirical data on his oscilloscope, Ted reiterates: If you had an experience in this area, it was probably due to this weird waveform. It’s all sawtoothed and jabberwockied. There’s defnitely some kind of strange EMF here, and there doesn’t seem to be any visible source for it (emphasis added). In this interaction, Samantha’s revelations about her strange experiences in the game room guide Ted’s interpretation of the EMF waveforms on his

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oscilloscope. He encourages a paranormal explanation for her experience, suggesting that the high EMF in the area may be a sign of a spiritual presence. At the same time, he hedges his commitment to this interpretation by using words and phrases such as “probably,” some kind,” and “seem to be.” Changes in environmental conditions, audio or visual phenomena, and even equipment malfunctions are generally treated as particularly strong evidence of a haunting. Because technological equipment is regarded as unbiased and diffcult to manipulate, fuctuations or malfunctions produced by this equipment are presumed to be responding to something in the environment. Though investigators who use such equipment do not immediately or automatically label such occurrences as evidence, they consider it to be objective data that is worth further consideration. Investigators are more likely to regard technological data as evidence if such events occur while an investigator is attempting to communicate with a spirit or requesting that the spirit give some sign of its presence. During an investigation by Upper Midwest Paranormal at a public library, I sit with Chad and Alex just outside of a rare books room. The team is focusing on this location because a librarian reported to the team that she saw the apparition of a woman in this area. The librarian suspected the apparition may have been the spirit of an author whose books are held in the room. For several minutes, Alex and Chad ask the spirit to make herself known by knocking on something or touching them, but they receive no response. Then, Alex suggests that they try to lure the spirit toward his Geiger counter, which measures ambient radiation. Speaking to the spirit, he says, “If you come near me, I have a box over here that will light up and play a noise for you.” After a short pause, I hear the unmistakable clicking of Alex’s Geiger counter. “That’s weird,” he comments. “The radiation detector went up to twentyeight counts per minute. It was at nineteen.” “Is it still rising?” Chad asks, and Alex responds, “Yeah. Twenty-nine. Thirty. Now it’s going back down. It’s back down to twenty-one now.” “What does that actually measure?” I inquire. “Beta rays and gamma rays,” Alex replies. “Supposedly if there’s an apparition there’s going to be a burst of gamma energy—like X-rays—for a short time. It was at 0.017 mR/h [milliRoentgen per hour]; it’s at 0.008 mR/h now.” Pausing for a moment, Alex then asks of the spirit, “Was that you that was just here? Can you come near me again?” Despite his efforts, the Geiger counter records no further fuctuations and we leave the area a short time later. On the rare occasions that audio and visual recordings include anomalous content, these are regarded as the most compelling evidence of a haunting. Generally, teams review their audio and video recordings in the weeks following an investigation, so the interpretive work undertaken in relation to such data was not as readily observable as other forms of sense making. However, I observed the presentation of such “evidence” at paranormal conferences. These conferences are typically held annually and offer paranormal investigators (and other paranormal enthusiasts and researchers) an opportunity to

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socialize. At these conferences, team leaders and other invited speakers present their fndings and discuss their investigative techniques. At one conference, I observe Phil’s presentation of what he called the “train EVP.” Phil’s team, Borderlands Paranormal Research Team, captured the audio recording at a nearby historic home. This home was rumored to be haunted by the original owners as well as the victims of train accidents that occurred near the home. According to the home’s docent, the original owner of the home clad the walls of his library with wood paneling removed from Pullman cars that were damaged in these accidents. As a result, paranormal investigators theorize that the spirits of people who died in these Pullman cars haunt the home’s library. Before presenting the audio clip, Phil specifes that he used an Olympus VN 3100 digital audio recorder to capture the EVP and notes that this recorder “has a sample rate of 16,000 Hertz” and “a frequency response rate between 300 and 7,200 Hertz.” After providing this technical information, he clarifes that these parameters should be adequate for recording the disembodied voices of spirits. Following these comments, Phil plays the audio three times over the speaker system in the auditorium. To my ears, the audio clip seems to include a female voice saying, “I don’t like trains. Trains bring death.” Turning off the audio, Phil looks out at the audience and reports that his team concluded that the statement about trains was not made by any females present during the investigation. After this, he states, “This is one of those things, I honestly don’t believe it even though my recorder was sitting right next to me and the closest female was fve feet away.” When combined with his technical description of his audio recorder’s parameters, this comment about being in disbelief about the content of the recording positions Phil as an intelligent person who is skeptical toward most data that is presented as evidence of ghosts. Much like the scientists studied by Latour and Woolgar (1986) and Gilbert and Mulkay (1984), Phil (and other scientifcally oriented investigators) obscures the interpretive nature of his “discovery” of evidence by displaying technical expertise and presenting himself as a disinterested observer of the data. This, in turn, frames the audio recording as an objective example of authentic paranormal evidence, free from any interpretation or biases.

The evidentiary value of debunking The primary goal of the forms of interpretive work detailed above is to produce somatic, extrasensory, and technological claims that paranormal investigators can treat as credible evidence of spiritual presences. In order to not undermine the credibility of such claims, investigators also engage in a parallel process of “debunking.” Debunking involves efforts to fnd non-paranormal explanations for events that initially seem to emanate from paranormal sources. This alternative form of interpretive work plays a central role in paranormal investigation. Although it may seem counterintuitive, systematic efforts to fnd reasonable non-paranormal explanations for strange events actually strengthen

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investigators’ evidentiary claims in two ways. First, like the paranormal experients studied by Waskul and Waskul (2016), investigators use debunking as a way to indicate to others that they are rational people who attempt to fnd ordinary explanations before arriving at paranormal conclusions. Second, debunking increases the perceived legitimacy of the “evidence” that remains after such efforts. Presented as a process of separating the paranormal “wheat” from the non-paranormal “chaff,” debunking rests on an assumption that evidence of paranormal phenomena is attainable. Moreover, debunking carries with it an implication that any data that has not been eliminated at the conclusion of this process should be treated as robust evidence of these phenomena. In the end, debunking also reinforces the dominance of a scientifcally oriented approach to investigating, as technologies are frequently used to debunk sensitive claims. One of the most common methods of debunking is to simply search for an identifable non-paranormal source for what at frst seems to be a paranormal event. During the investigation of the Uptown Theater, for example, I observe members of Upper Midwest Paranormal working to identify ordinary causes for several noises that occur during an EVP session in the basement. In the midst of the EVP session, the distinct sound of a chair being dragged across a foor emanates from directly above us. “What was that?!?” Matthew exclaims and then, in an answer to his own question, states, “It sounded like someone moved a chair up above us.” A few seconds later, Scott claims that he hears a female voice singing, though he cannot decipher the words. “Could it have come from outside?” Matthew asks. Pointing in Matthew’s direction, Scott reports, “It was coming from right where you’re standing. It sounded robotic, almost like a radio.” Believing that they might be in the presence of a spirit, Matthew inquires, “Is there anyone down here with us?” After a short silence, Scott asks, “Was that you I just heard say something? Were you singing?” Matthew and Scott receive no apparent responses to their questions and decide to search for a nonparanormal explanation for the noises. I follow the two investigators upstairs and down an alleyway that leads to a heavily traffcked street running alongside the theater. We walk down the block to a location that Matthew believes should be directly above where we heard the noises. Indeed, we discover a busy steakhouse and, next to that, a cocktail bar blaring upbeat music. Frustrated that the sounds we had heard could be explained away, Scott exclaims, “That sucks!” before jokingly asking Matthew, “So in the notes should I just write ‘Goddamn it!’?” “You can just say ‘debunked,’” replies Matthew in a disappointed tone. In such instances, the investigators seem to hope that the events are, in fact, caused by spiritual presences. Rather than simply defning them as “evidence,” though, they search for alternative, non-paranormal explanations. As with somatic work, these debunking efforts rely upon descriptions of such phenomena and collective negotiations about their plausible sources. Likewise, investigators attempt to spatially locate strange sounds, sights, or feelings in order to determine a possible cause for these experiences. Investigators’ descriptions

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highlight unusual qualities of these phenomena—such as the robotic tone of the voice heard by Scott—as a means of tentatively proposing that they may be paranormal. However, further negotiations and investigations ultimately lead to a collective agreement that the phenomena can be suffciently accounted for through ordinary explanations. Thus, the decision to categorize seemingly anomalous experiences as “debunked” is a product of interpretive sense making processes that mirror those through which certain experiences come to be defned as “evidence.” Paranormal investigators’ debunking efforts are disproportionately directed toward fnding non-paranormal causes for events that sensitives regard as extrasensory evidence of spiritual presences. This tendency is especially notable among scientifcally oriented investigators, who treat sensitive claims with suspicion. One such instance of debunking takes place during an investigation of a Catholic rectory by Upper Midwest Paranormal. Earlier in the evening, during the team’s walk-through, I observe Gabriel as he stops just outside of an upstairs bathroom and stands silently for a moment, as though he is trying to pick up on some kind of extrasensory signal. After a few seconds, he instructs Todd to place a camera facing into this bathroom because he senses “something” in this location. Later, Todd heads to the same bathroom with an EMF detector, hoping to fnd technological evidence of a spiritual presence. Indeed, as soon as Todd begins taking measurements with the detector, he reports that the readings jump from 0.00 to 0.09 milligauss. Taking this as confrmation of his sensitive claims, Gabriel shouts, “Ha ha! We’ve got spiking in the bathroom, Matthew!” Todd begins an EVP session, asking the spirit, “If there’s someone here with us, could you come over and touch the devices in front of me?” Gabriel then instructs the spirit to turn on a fashlight sitting on a radiator near the bathroom to “show everybody once and for all that you’re here.” Meanwhile, Matthew asks Samantha what the baseline EMF reading was in that bathroom during the walk-through, and she reports that it was 0.75 milligauss. Hearing this number, Gabriel asks incredulously, “What was she using to get that as a baseline” (emphasis in original)? Matthew walks over to the bathroom to show Gabriel and Todd the trifeld EMF meter that Samantha used to take baseline readings. He explains that this tri-feld meter is more accurate than the single-axis meter Todd is using, and then holds up the meter to read the level of EMF it is detecting at the moment. He reports that the current reading is 0.72 milligauss, which is quite high for ambient EMF but nearly identical to the baseline reading recorded earlier by Samantha. Matthew explains that this means that Gabriel’s claimed EMF “spike” is in fact a result of incorrect use of inferior equipment. Gabriel does not challenge these conclusions, thus affrming the higher evidentiary value of technological data. However, he follows Matthew’s remarks with the comment, “Oh, maybe the high EMF is what I felt in there earlier.” Todd and Gabriel make no further claims during this investigation that their technological devices offer confrmation of his abilities. Nonetheless, his statement that his perception of “something” in the bathroom resulted from EMF

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sensitivity frames his erroneous conclusion as a misinterpretation of the physiological effects of high levels of EMF. In so doing, Gabriel accounts for his error in a way that protects his claimed sensitive abilities from questioning by his teammates. As with sensory and extrasensory claims, investigators who rely upon technological tools also attempt to debunk seemingly anomalous data they collect using their devices. For example, during Prairieland Paranormal’s investigation of the opera house Bruce and Nate begin reviewing digital photographs that other investigators had taken earlier in the evening. As Nate clicks through the images, Bruce asks him to stop at a particular photo. In this image, it appears that a dark, human-shaped fgure is standing near the end of a basement hallway. The fgure is slightly hunched over, and no facial features are discernible due to the darkness of the image. “That has to be one of us,” says Bruce. “It looks like a head, arm, and shorts.” Glancing over at Nate, who is wearing cargo shorts, he asks, “That’d be you?” “No, I wasn’t down there,” Nate replies. Pointing at the fgure in the image, Bruce reiterates, “I mean, there’s something right there.” Nick agrees but adds, “It doesn’t look like one of us.” The two men decide to head to the basement to see if they can either fnd a plausible explanation for the image or determine that it is, in fact, evidence of a ghost. I join them for the brief walk through the opera house’s main foor and down the stairs behind the stage. When we arrive in the basement, we meet up with team leader Jason and two other investigators, Becky and Diane. Jason asks what we are doing, and Bruce replies, “We captured an apparition comin’ out of here” as he points to a nearby doorway. His comment is telling, in that it reveals that his interpretation of the image is shifting toward a paranormal explanation. Almost immediately after this statement, though, Diane provides a non-paranormal explanation for the image. She remarks, “Becky came out [of the doorway] in one of the pictures. I tried to keep her out [of the photos] but I think she got into one.” “Yeah, I was like this,” Becky adds, positioning herself halfway out of the doorway with her head facing downward, looking at her EMF detector. This pose closely matches the fgure captured in the image, leading Nate to conclude, “So it was probably Becky then.” As with the frst example of debunking (the noises in the theater basement), Prairieland Paranormal does not simply jump to a paranormal interpretation of the strange image. Instead, through further investigation and communication they attempt to fnd a plausible alternative explanation. They negotiate the meaning of the image until they reach a shared conclusion that it is effectively debunked and should be eliminated from consideration as possible evidence of a haunting. In addition to these real-time debunking efforts, investigators also negotiate the defnitions of audio or visual data through “data review.” During this period, which typically includes the few weeks following an investigation, the investigators review all of the audio and visual (video and photographic) data they collected during the investigation. If an investigator discovers a sound or image that is not readily attributable to a living person who was present during

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the investigation, this person shares a digital clip of this anomaly with the team. Members then communicate (either in person or electronically) about the contents of the clip until they arrive at a shared defnition of whether the audio or image constitutes evidence. For example, following an investigation at a storage facility that once served as a hardware store in the late nineteenth century, Matthew instructs members of Upper Midwest Paranormal to email audio clips and images to one another for review. Because I had joined the team on this investigation, I review my own audio recordings and share one clip that includes what sounds like female laughter. Independent of my recording, Chad and Dennis also share audio clips that include this laughing sound. After reviewing the audio, Matthew states that it “sounds like Heidi” and asks Heidi to check her audio recorder to see if she did indeed laugh. After reviewing her audio, Heidi provides her clips to Dennis, who listens to them and pronounces via email, “Mystery solved! The clip is actually Heidi saying ‘It’s a bus’ in a low volume.” His statement effectively debunks the clip, and it is disregarded from that point forward. Such a collective effort to debunk recordings is common practice among investigators and increases teams’ confdence in the evidentiary value of data that cannot be accounted for through such careful and collaborative review.

Theoretical contributions The forms of interpretive work delineated above are all critical to paranormal investigators’ abilities to demarcate a boundary between the normal and the paranormal. In keeping with the foundational symbolic interactionist tenets articulated by Blumer (1969), a given sensory, extrasensory, or technologically mediated experience has no inherent meaning apart from the interpretive actions of those who attempt to make sense of these events. For paranormal investigators, this sense making most often occurs in real time through faceto-face interactions in the context of an investigation. In these encounters (Goffman 1961), investigators use somatic work (Vannini et al. 2012), along with what I have called discernment work and techno-empiricist work, to collectively construct accounts that tentatively propose a paranormal explanation for events that seem strange. At the same time, paranormal investigators engage in debunking efforts to fnd plausible non-paranormal explanations for such events. In both cases, they undertake interpretive interactions with a goal of producing a shared answer to the question “What is it that’s going on here?,” as Goffman put it (1974:8). Ultimately, the placement of the status of “evidence” upon a given experience or piece of numerical data is the end result of interactive and discursive sense making practices, or “work,” in the symbolic interactionist meaning of this term. The analysis presented here offers a unique ethnographic application of the concept of somatic work. In the context of paranormal investigation, somatic work not only produces the meaning of the sensations; it produces the sensations themselves, in that the sights, sounds, and feelings to which

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investigators respond are presumed to originate from sources (ghosts) whose presence is not observable. In the absence of physically observable signs of such sensory experiences, their evidentiary value is dependent upon the perceived credibility of experients’ “somatic accounts” and team members’ “joint somatic acts” (Vannini et al. 2012). Building off of this theorization of “work,” in this chapter I introduce two concepts—discernment work and techno-empiricist work—that expand upon sociological theorization of the discursive practices of psychic mediums (e.g., Woofftt 2006) and the construction of scientifc knowledge (e.g., Gilbert and Mulkay 1984; Latour and Woolgar 1986), respectively. Regarding discernment work, the context of paranormal investigation offers an opportunity to show how the credibility of extrasensory knowledge claims—and therefore their status as “evidence” of a spiritual presence—is a collaborative accomplishment. Application of this status to a given extrasensory claim relies upon two important factors: the sensitive’s skilled production of a believable account of spirit contact, and other investigators’ integration of these accounts into the team’s collective sense making process. Similarly, data acquired via technological tools is made meaningful through its incorporation into the team’s ongoing interpretive work. As with some somatic accounts and extrasensory claims, not all techno-empirical data achieves evidentiary status; some data is debunked and excluded from the team’s sense making. However, that which is presented as objective data acquired through scientifc means takes on an air of empirical truth and informs investigators’ conclusions about the presence of ghosts. Together, paranormal investigators accomplish hauntings by jointly participating in symbolic work that produces and sustains subculturally credible accounts of paranormal activity. Because belief in ghosts is fundamentally based on one’s faith in the validity of such accounts, the ontological reality of ghosts depends upon the success of this work. In short, the interpretive and interactive construction of “evidence” within the paranormal investigation subculture reinforces investigators’ belief in ghosts, maintains the viability of the subculture, and may ultimately sustain broader cultural interest in the idea that the spirits of the dead may walk among us.

References Blumer, Herbert. 1969. Symbolic Interactionism: Perspective and Method. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Collins, Harry M. and Trevor J. Pinch. 1979. “The Construction of the Paranormal: Nothing Unscientifc Is Happening.” Pp. 237–70. In: On the Margins of Science: The Social Construction of Rejected Knowledge, edited by R. Wallis. Keele: UK: University of Keele. Fine, Gary Alan. 1995. “Wittgenstein’s Kitchen: Sharing Meaning in Restaurant Work.” Theory and Society 24(2):245–69. Ghidina, Marcia J. 2019. “Finding God in Grain: Crop Circles, Rationality, and the Construction of Spiritual Experience.” Symbolic Interaction 42(2):278–300.

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Gilbert, G. Nigel and Michael Mulkay. 1984. Opening Pandora’s Box: A Sociological Analysis of Scientists’ Discourse. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Goffman, Erving. 1959. The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. New York: Anchor Books. ––––––. 1961. Encounters: Two Studies in the Sociology of Interaction. Mansfeld Centre, CT: Martino Publishing. ––––––. 1974. Frame Analysis: An Essay on the Organization of Experience. New York: Harper Colophon Books. Hanks, Michele. 2016a. “Redefning Rationality: Paranormal Investigators’ Humour in England.” Ethnos 81(2):262–89. ––––––. 2016b. “Between Electricity and Spirit: Paranormal Investigation and the Creation of Doubt in England.” American Anthropologist 118(4):811–23. Heath, Christian. 2002. “Demonstrative Suffering: The Gestural (Re)Embodiment of Symptoms.” Journal of Communication 52(3):597–616. Hill, Sharon A. 2017. Scientifcal Americans: The Culture of Amateur Paranormal Researchers. Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company, Inc. Ironside, Rachael. 2018. “Feeling Spirits: Sharing Subjective Paranormal Experience through Embodied Talk and Action.” Text and Talk 38(6):705–28. Latour, Bruno and Steve Woolgar. 1986. Laboratory Life: The Construction of Scientifc Facts. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Laubach, Marty. 2004. “The Social Effects of Psychism: Spiritual Experience and the Construction of Privatized Religion.” Sociology of Religion 65(3):239–63. Lienhard, Joseph T. 1980. “On ‘Discernment of Spirits’ in the Early Church.” Theological Studies 41(3):505–29. Luhrmann, Tanya M. 2012. When God Talks Back: Understanding the American Evangelical Relationship with God. New York: Vintage Books. Potter, Jonathan. 1996. Representing Reality: Discourse, Rhetoric and Social Construction. London: Sage. Vannini, Phillip, Guppy Ahluwalia-Lopez, Dennis Waskul, and Simon Gottschalk. 2010. “Performing Taste at Wine Festivals: A Somatic Layered Account of Material Culture.” Qualitative Inquiry 16(5):378–96. Vannini, Phillip, Dennis Waskul, and Simon Gottschalk. 2012. The Senses in Self, Society, and Culture: A Sociology of the Senses. New York: Routledge. Waskul, Dennis with Michele Waskul. 2016. Ghostly Encounters: The Hauntings of Everyday Life. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press. Woofftt, Robin. 2000. “Some Properties of the Interactional Organisation of Displays of Paranormal Cognition in Psychic-Sitter Interaction.” Sociology 34(3):457–79. ––––––. 2006. The Language of Mediums and Psychics: The Social Organization of Everyday Miracles. London: Ashgate. Woofftt, Robin and Hannah Gilbert. 2008. “Discourse, Rhetoric, and the Accomplishment of Mediumship in Stage Demonstrations Mortality 13(3):222–40. Woofftt, Robin, Clare Jackson, Darren Reed, Yasushi Ohashi, and Isaac Hughes. 2013. “Self, Identity, Authenticity, and the Other: The Spirits and Audience Management in Stage Mediumship.” Language and Communication 33(2):93–105.

4

Empersoning spirits

In the previous chapter, we saw how paranormal investigators distinguish evidence of a ghostly presence from natural phenomena by interpreting sensory, extrasensory, and technological data. This chapter also conceptualizes the sensing of spirits as an interactive accomplishment but turns its focus toward paranormal investigator’s interactions with spirits during investigations. Paranormal investigators rely upon factual information, folklore, personal claims of ghostly encounters, and several other sources of knowledge to collaboratively construct disembodied persons with whom they perceive themselves to be interacting. Before considering how this process unfolds, it is frst important to defne the concept of personhood and delineate its distinguishing features.

Distinguishing features of personhood In much symbolic interactionist writing, the concept of personhood is confated with the idea of the self. However, there are important differences. Cahill (1998:135, quoting Harre 1984:26), for example, describes a person as a “socially defned, publicly visible embodied being” and characterizes the self as “such a being’s [i.e., a person’s] refexive awareness of personal agency and identity.” The key distinction is that personhood is a socially defned status, a label applied to a human or non-human entity by those who interact with this entity. While the self is also a social construction, it is not only a socially defned status. As Mead ([1934]1962) theorizes, one’s self emerges through internal conversations and refexive thought. Through these practices, one is able to become an object to oneself. In line with Mead’s theorization of the concept, symbolic interactionists agree that the self cannot develop in the absence of social interaction. Once a sense of self does develop, however, the individual internalizes this socially constructed status and perceives the self as located deep within themselves. In other words, they perceive themselves as possessing a core self that is somehow inherent to their being. The self, then, is both socially derived and individually experienced. In contrast, personhood is applied by others in the context of situated interactions these others have with the object (in the Meadian sense) to whom

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“person” status is attributed. It is in this sense that Sanders (2003:418) states the following about personhood: The designation “person” is the most elemental social identity. It provides the foundation for, and is constructed in the context of, relationships. As a basic categorical identity, personhood may be acquired or lost, given or taken away, solidifed or adjusted within the fow of interaction that comprises relationships. Everyday, face-to-face social exchanges provide the materials used in the “collaborative manufacture” (Cahill 1998:136) of the person as interactants defne the immediate situation, act in particular ways, and attend to each other’s responses. To the extent that responses are “appropriate” to the situation and co-actors’ understanding of each other, person-identities are enacted and reinforced. Like Sanders, I regard personhood as a socially constructed categorical identity that is contingent upon the object, broadly speaking, interacting in meaningful ways with others. In the context of paranormal investigation, personhood is ascribed to disembodied beings that the investigators regard as spiritual entities (most often, the spirits of deceased humans) with distinct identities and a capacity for minded action. Unlike Cahill and Sanders, I argue that personhood is not dependent upon embodiment or the ability to engage in face-to-face interactions. Like Vannini (2008:157), who states that “personhood is…not limited to humans” but can be attributed to non-human objects, I assert that personhood is not contingent upon the physical presence of the object to which this status is given. Moreover, I share Vannini’s (2008) view that personhood is an outcome of storytelling, and extend his logic to argue that person status can be achieved by an object even if it never existed in a physical form. In the case of ghost stories, for example, the object that is the focus of the tale (for example, a ghostly apparition) may or may not correspond to an actual deceased human being that once physically occupied the space that they reportedly haunt. Many of the ghosts that allegedly haunt these locations are apocryphal, but their existence in the narratives of these locations is the peg upon which paranormal investigators can hang the label “person.” Through a collaborative process I refer to as empersoning, paranormal investigators construct and sustain personhood status for the spirits that reportedly reside in haunted locations. This empersoning is dependent upon attributions of mindedness, distinctiveness, and co-presence.

Mindedness From a Meadian ([1934]1962:133) perspective, “the mind is…essentially a social phenomenon,” in that mindedness is characterized by refexive thought in which one is able to “take the attitude of the other toward himself” (134) when considering past actions and potential future lines of action. Such minded behavior is dependent upon one’s ability to interpret and employ “signifcant

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symbols” (Mead 1934[1962]:71), and especially language. From this perspective, the capacity for two or more people to share meaning is rooted in a shared symbolic system. Without the ability to understand and employ signifcant symbols one cannot be said to have a mind, in this sense of the term. Symbolic interactionists have also highlighted another aspect of Mead’s conception of mind: that mindedness is a social achievement, the product of collaborative processes in which a mind is attributed to a human, animal, or even an object by those who interact with this entity. For example, Gubrium (1986) describes loved ones and caretakers as “doing mind” for Alzheimer’s patients whose utterances and behaviors no longer convey a clear meaning. Through “a type of existential labor” (Gubrium 1986:43), those who are closest to the patient work together to discern meaningful communication—and therefore mindedness—in sounds and gestures that most people would simply disregard. Bogdan and Taylor (1989) and Pollner and McDonald-Wikler (1985) similarly report that non-disabled relatives of severely disabled people attribute mindedness by reading signifcance into sounds and gestures and describing their disabled kin as possessing distinct personalities. In these instances, the non-disabled interactant “performs a type of symbolic ventriloquism through giving voice” to those who cannot express themselves (Owens 2007:577). The act of “giving voice” involves attributions of meaning to the voiceless individual’s actions as well as a process of “forgetting,” in which the person giving voice acts as though the meanings embedded in these utterances originated in the mind of the voiceless person rather than their own mind. Once the voiceless person is represented as a minded individual, meaningful interaction with this person is possible despite the fact that the person may, in objective terms, be incapable of either interpreting symbols or sharing meaning through use of signifcant symbols. Research on human-animal interactions shows a similar process of giving voice unfolds between caretakers and their animals. Moreover, much like those caring for disabled or debilitated humans, pet owners also imbue their animals with distinct personalities and preferences, as well as the capacity to plan and engage in minded behaviors like play or deception (Alger and Alger 1997; Irvine 2004; Sanders 1993; 2007). The limited symbolic interactionist work currently published on the topic of ghosts suggests that the majority of people who perceive or interact with something that they believe to be a spirit attribute mindedness to these entities. Waskul and Waskul (2016) state that 76% of the hauntings reported by their interviewees are “intelligent” hauntings, involving spirits that are selfaware and capable of interacting with the physical world. These ghosts typically manipulate inanimate objects to make their presences known but will occasionally interact with the living through vocalizations or “somatic impressions” (Waskul and Waskul 2016:62–63) such as touches or scents. The people who experience such activities believe these spirits engage in such interactions as a form of attention seeking and as a means of communication. Such attributions are consistent with the symbolic interactionist principle that mindedness is developed and reinforced through meaningful social interactions. This lends

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credence to the notion that ghosts can be “minded” through the interpretive actions of those who perceive such disembodied beings in their presence.

Distinctiveness Personhood status is also contingent upon the possession or attribution of distinctive physicality, emotions, and self-history. One marker of distinction that is not technically physical but is often treated as such is an individual’s name. Work on human-animal companionship, for example, shows that naming is a way to defne an animal as a unique being (Sanders 1995, 2003; Taylor 2007), while Goffman’s (1961) work on total institutions reveals that stripping away a person’s name contributes to the mortifcation of the self. Whether or not the name attached to a spirit corresponds to historical records showing the named individual’s association with the property, the act of naming itself distinguishes this entity as a unique person. Along with naming, a sense of bodily distinctiveness is another critical component of personhood. Bodily distinctiveness takes two forms: sense of coherence and adornment. Coherence involves recognition that one’s body is physically distinct from the bodies of others and objects in the surrounding environment. It is apparent, for example, in pets’ awareness that they must hide their whole bodies if they wish not to be seen by their owners (Irvine 2004). Adornment heightens distinctiveness by enabling people to manage their “personal front” (Goffman 1959) by displaying certain clothing items, hair styles, or other forms of bodily decoration that they believe refect their personality. Together, these physical or (in the case of naming) quasi-physical traits mark an individual as a unique person who is self-aware of her or his own distinctiveness. Imputation of distinct personality traits and tastes are also important elements of empersoning. Because personality and preferences are so integral to establishing the personhood of an individual, caretakers of the mentally disabled (Bogdan and Taylor 1989) attribute personality characteristics such as being “silly” to these people and take pains to discern unique preferences in clothing, food, and music. Likewise, pet owners emphasize their animals’ temperaments and preferences for certain toys or places to sleep as markers of distinctive personalities (Irvine 2004; Sanders 1993, 1995). This body of scholarship suggests that tastes and preferences are central to our sense of what it means to have a personality and that, in turn, personality is seen as one of the most important elements of distinctive personhood. Along with personality, possession (or attribution by others) of a unique self-history also is a mark of distinctiveness. Such a conceptualization of personhood is embedded in the symbolic interactionist principle that an individual’s sense of self is infuenced by their perception of others’ responses to their past actions (Cooley 1902; Mead [1934]1962). Such refexivity would not be possible if one did not possess a self-history that was accessible for one’s own evaluation. In cases where individuals are unable to refect upon themselves

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in this way—such as people suffering from debilitating illnesses—those who know them engage in “biographical work” (Barken 2014) that reconstructs memories from the person’s past to provide them with a coherent self-history. In this biographical work, personhood status is affrmed by references to distinct events in a given individual’s life, which are used to embed the person in a narrative of shared history with the person doing the biographical work. In the context of self-history among the deceased, ghost stories frequently feature spirits who haunt places where they lived, worked, and/or died. In addition, the spirits in these tales typically haunt people who were signifcant to them in life, who contributed to their deaths, or to whom they wish to pass on a message regarding worldly concerns (see Davies 2007; Finucane 1996). Clarke (2012), for example, argues that the frst modern ghost story can be traced to ancient Greece. In this tale dated to the frst century CE, Pliny the Younger writes of a ghostly male fgure who terrorizes the current inhabitant of a home in Athens until the spirit leads the man to a place in the home’s courtyard where its body is buried. More recently, Thomas (2007) writes of a dead man who appeared to his son and requested that the son pay off a decades-old debt at the local grocery store. Stories like these (and there are many) imply a sense of self-history among ghosts, including memories of affective ties, recollection of the circumstances of one’s death, and a desire to remain involved in events in which one was engaged prior to death. When combined with attributions of personalities and unique physical characteristics, they help to establish the distinctiveness of these spirits and, in so doing, allow for the empersoning of disembodied entities.

Co-presence Lastly, symbolic interactionist literature suggests that personhood is achieved through intersubjective encounters involving some form of co-presence. As originally defned by Goffman (1966:17), co-presence implies a physical colocation in which “persons must sense that they are close enough to be perceived in whatever they are doing, including their experiencing of others, and close enough to be perceived in this sensing of being perceived.” However, recent scholarship—especially that which is focused on the effects of computer-mediated communication upon social interaction—suggests a redefnition of co-presence as a sense of mutual experience that does not require physical co-location. Campos-Castillo and Hitlin (2013) defne co-presence as “the perception of mutual entrainment between actors,” where entrainment is characterized by interactants’ reciprocal focus on one another, empathetic emotional connection, and mutual activity of some sort (169; emphasis in original). By this defnition, not only may the person with whom you are interacting be physically distant from you; they may even be physically nonexistent, as in “parasocial and imaginary interactions with nonhuman [others], such as prayer with deities or deceased ancestors” (Campos-Castillo and Hitlin 2013:173). Following this line of thought, Zhao (2003) distinguishes modes of

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co-presence (such as physical or mediated forms of interaction) from the “sense of co-presence,” which “involves an individual’s perceptions and feelings of being with others” (450). Co-presence, then, is an intersubjective experience in which the “reality” of being a subject of mutual attention and action is the product of social processes that create an impression of reciprocal sociality regardless of whether two or more living persons are, in fact, interacting in some form. In online forums, for example, co-presence is constructed through discursive exchanges between disembodied characters who draw upon shared symbolic codes and cultural representations to construct “virtual” persons who then interact in environments that exist entirely in a digital world (Waskul 2003; Waskul, Douglass, and Edgley 2000; Zhao 2005). Similarly, the Internet provides opportunities for the preparation and maintenance of forms of “posthumous personhood” that allow an individual to maintain relational connections with loved ones even after physical death (Meese et al. 2015). Thus, co-presence is not delimited by one’s inability to be physically co-located, nor is it necessarily impossible after one’s death. Defned as a sense of social connection, co-presence occurs any time a person believes that they are interacting with another minded and distinctive being.

Empersoning as situated action In my exploration of empersoning, I build upon Cahill’s insights into what he refers to as the “person production process” (1998:136). This process is, in turn, grounded in Goffman’s theorizing of the person as a collaboratively manufactured outcome of situated social interactions. As Goffman explains, a person (or what he called a “self”) is “a product of a scene that comes off, …a dramatic effect arising diffusely from a scene that is presented” (1959:252–53; emphasis in original). From this perspective, personhood is imputed to an individual on the basis of information known about that individual or people of a similar social type. This information may take the form of memories of prior personal encounters with this individual, documentary evidence, previous experiences with others who are similar to this individual, or stereotypes about a group to which the individual is presumed to belong (Goffman 1959:1). In addition, the individuals’ actions and expressions during a social encounter also inform others’ impressions of her or him. There is an inherent power dynamic in this empersoning process, in that both performers and audiences attempt to control the interaction. To the degree that one individual or group has primary control over deciding what information is to treated as the “facts” in this encounter, they can “exert inordinate infuence over interactional processes of person production” (Cahill 1998:143). In the case of paranormal investigation, investigators frequently possess facts, or at least ghost lore, about locations and about the specifc spirits who are rumored to haunt these places. When they do not possess information pertaining to the “personal identity” (Goffman 1963) of a spirit—such as the unique

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appearance, personality, and life history of the deceased individual—investigators build a profle of the spirit on the basis of stereotypes about members of social groups to which the spirit is assumed to belong. In contrast to the Goffmanian idea that self-presentations are dramaturgically accomplished in the context of interactions characterized by reciprocal infuence between participants, interactions with ghosts are dominated by the interpretive work of paranormal investigators. Because these investigators believe that ghosts are extremely limited in their abilities to directly communicate information about themselves, the investigators have the power (or the duty, as they may see it) to construct an identity for these spirits. The actions and interpretations undertaken by paranormal investigation teams thus emperson the ghosts that reportedly haunt the locations they investigate. It is also important to note that empersoning actions, whether or not in the context of paranormal investigation, are situated in time and place. In regard to place, the physical circumstances of a scene of interaction—the setting and props, to use Goffman’s (1959) terminology—function as resources for the development of persons. For those who believe in ghosts, locations such as Victorian-era homes, abandoned hospitals, decommissioned prisons, and liminal spaces like attics, basements, stairways, and hallways are the most frequently reported haunted spaces (Davies 2007; Lipman 2016; Waskul and Waskul 2016). Likewise, the physical features of a setting also infuence the meanings that are more likely to be attributed to that space and, therefore, to the (disembodied) individuals present in that space. Antique furnishings, crumbling walls, peeling paint, and equipment related to the handling of the dead are all treated by paranormal investigators as indicators that a site may be likely to be haunted. Paranormal teams also introduce two categories of objects into these settings: equipment that is intended to help investigators locate, communicate with, and/or record the presence of spirits; and trigger objects, which are selected to be enticing to the spirits that allegedly haunt a space and are used as a means of luring these entities to physically interact with the objects in ways that can validate their presence. For example, cigarettes and alcohol may be placed where apparitions of prisoners or mobsters are reportedly seen, while toys and candy are placed where child spirits are supposed to be present. Both objects introduced into the setting and already present function as props within the empersoning process. Empersoning must also be considered in relation to the temporal context in which it occurs. In the context of perceived ghostly encounters, temporality becomes relevant in two main ways. First, people may report “anniversary hauntings” (Waskul and Waskul 2016) wherein ghosts make themselves known to the living on or around the anniversary of a signifcant event in their lives, particularly the day they died. This temporal situatedness aids empersoning efforts, in that the co-incidence of the anniversary and the apparent paranormal activity leads observers to conclude that the activity is caused by the deceased person for whom the date is particularly signifcant. Secondly, and more specifically related to paranormal investigation, the temporality of the investigation

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itself establishes an interpretive context for investigators’ sense making efforts. For example, all of the investigations I directly observe (and most of those described by those I interview) occur at night. This is true despite the fact that those who claim to have experienced ghostly encounters in these spaces are no more likely to report that these events occur at night than during daylight hours. Most paranormal teams also make a point of turning off as many lights as possible during investigations, a practice investigators refer to as “going dark.” They justify these practices on a number of grounds: some claim that ghosts are more active at night, so late-night investigations increase the chances of capturing evidence. Others say that the darkness heightens their other senses and therefore makes it more likely that they will be sensitive to sounds and feelings they otherwise may have ignored (though they concede that darkness hinders their ability to see visible manifestations of spirit activity). Investigating in darkness also refects many investigators’ consumption of television shows, movies, books, and other cultural products that associate hauntings with dark and mysterious contexts. Regardless of the explanation provided, investigating under a shroud of darkness affects investigators’ perceptions of sensory inputs, reducing some sensitivities while potentially heightening others. Moreover, it creates a mysterious ambiance that infuences the empersoning process by making it seem more likely that ghosts may inhabit these darkened spaces. The disembodied persons who are collaboratively sensed in these temporal contexts must be understood as interactive accomplishments borne of the interpretive work undertaken by paranormal investigators who use the knowledge they possess as well as the setting and props in these spaces as resources for the empersoning of spirits. Lastly, empersoning is temporally situated in regard to when, in relation to the investigation itself, investigators access information that shapes their interpretations of events that take place during the investigation. I have identifed three phases of empersoning. In prefgurative empersoning, teams access relevant information before an investigation. Most investigators prefer to conduct research about a site’s history and any paranormal claims associated with the location before they actually investigate the site. If they are able to interview individuals who claim to have directly experienced something potentially paranormal, investigators rely upon these frst-person accounts as a means of assessing the number and type of entities reportedly haunting a location. If such accounts are unavailable, second-hand stories from people with local knowledge are treated as the next best thing. Such accounts are provided by regional paranormal experts (such as ghost tour guides) or, if a location is a business, employees who informally or formally collect such reports. In conjunction with, or as replacement for frst- or second-hand accounts, investigators conduct background research on the location by studying information that is publicly available online and in historical records. If a location is publicized as haunted on television, paranormal radio shows, or the Internet, investigators also take these stories into account, though they often treat such reports as potentially less valid because they believe that entertainment media

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embellish paranormal stories to improve ratings. Lastly, if a team has previously investigated a location, the conclusions they reached following this previous investigation inform members’ preconceived notions about if the location is haunted and, if so, by whom or what. Thus, before they enter a setting, paranormal investigators establish a mental template of expectations for the kinds of paranormal events that “should” take place during an investigation. Participants also engage in emergent empersoning, wherein they establish the personhood of spirits through interpretation of events that occur (or are perceived to have occurred) over the course of an investigation. Sensory stimuli, such as sounds, smells, sights, or touches become the raw materials of an interactive process in which investigators co-construct a disembodied person who is attempting to communicate with them. Likewise, extrasensory perceptions by those who claim to have sensitive abilities also infuence investigators’ beliefs about, and actions toward, spirits. Data derived from technological equipment is also integrated into emergent empersoning processes. For example, fuctuations in electromagnetic energy, sudden temperature changes, triggering of motion sensors, or voice-like sounds emanating from real-time audio devices all feed into investigators’ collaborative construction of disembodied persons. Lastly, investigators engage in retroactive empersoning during the post-investigation period in which members review and discuss any audio, visual, or other data that they think might be evidence of a haunting. For example, if a voice on an audio recording or an image of a human-like fgure is not easily associated with someone who is present during an investigation, this audio clip becomes an artifact whose meaning is negotiated in person or electronically (as described in Chapter Three). Teams usually keep track of the precise location and timing of such recordings, enabling members to retroactively locate the anomalous audio or visual data in a specifc spatiotemporal context. If, after this review of the data, the investigators still cannot agree upon a non-paranormal explanation for the anomaly, it is incorporated into an empersoning process through which an identity is retroactively applied to the spirit who is believed to be the source of the audio or image.

Modes of empersoning in paranormal investigation As a situated action, empersoning is affected by all of the above-mentioned factors. It can also be distinguished by the level of personal detail that is included in teams’ collective representations of the ghosts allegedly haunting a site. I have identifed four modes of empersoning. These modes represent a spectrum of ways that disembodied personhood is constructed on the basis of available information, spatiotemporal contextual cues, and phenomena that occur over the course of a given investigation. The disembodied persons produced through each mode range from vague and somewhat stereotypical representations of nameless ghosts to detailed descriptions of specifc people who were known to the investigators when they were living. These four categories are not intended to be exhaustive; nor am I suggesting that

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investigators engage in only one mode for each instance of empersoning that occurs. In fact, investigators may switch from one mode to another as, for example, they discover more information about a person who is thought to haunt a space. Nonetheless, these four modes of empersoning illustrate the ways that paranormal investigators collectively construct personhood by attributing various levels of mindedness, distinctiveness, and co-presence to spirits.

Typifed empersoning At the highest level of abstraction is typifed empersoning. As Berger and Luckmann (1967) theorize, most interactions are structured in relation to “typifcatory schemes” through which we “apprehend the other as a type” of person and “interact with him in a situation that is itself typical” (1967:31; emphasis in original). Most often, we do not know the specifc details of the life of a given individual with whom we interact, so we perceive the person through categorical identities (woman, child, etc.) or “dispositional” (Cahill 1998) identities (honest, manipulative, etc.). Our responses to this person are fltered through presumptions we make on the basis of these identities and are further infuenced by physical setting and social context in which we interact with the individual. Together, these stereotypical assumptions and contextual cues establish a set of cognitive schemas that infuence perceptions of, and interactions with, this typifed person. In relation to paranormal investigating, typifed empersoning occurs when investigators enter a location with limited knowledge of claims about paranormal activity that allegedly occurs at the location. These claims include no names of particular individuals who may be haunting the property, and primarily rely upon a stock of relatively general information about the site. This includes historical or folkloric accounts of the types of people who once lived there, the activities in which these people regularly engaged, and any deaths or trauma that are associated with the property. Reports of ghostly activity in such typifed empersoning frequently include no physical description of the spirit or spirits allegedly haunting the site. On the occasions when such descriptions do enter into the empersoning process, they are based upon stereotypical cultural representations of the types of people who may have inhabited the space (for example, mobsters, prisoners, etc.). One example of typifed empersoning occurs during Upper Midwest Paranormal’s investigation of the Uptown Theater. Using an ultraviolet fashlight to fnd my way through the darkness, I follow Jerry, Matthew, and Scott to the furthest reaches of the basement, where the boiler room is located. As we entered this space, Jerry motions to the left rear corner of the room and remarks, “Sitting over there against the wall on a chair that isn’t actually there is a fat guy. Wife-beater t-shirt, dirty, grime on it. Big cigar in his mouth.” We all stop and stare in that direction, hoping (but failing) to see some evidence of the man’s presence. “Is he intelligent?” Scott asks. “Yeah,” replies

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Jerry. “He’s just sitting there though.” “He can see us?” inquires Matthew, the team leader. “Yeah,” affrms Jerry, “but all he does is sit there and look like an ass.” As team leader, Matthew instructs the investigators and me to fnd places to sit throughout the room. Once we are settled, Matthew and Scott begin speaking directly to the spirit as though he is physically co-present. While they do this, Jerry narrates the man’s responses. Through this interaction, they construct an emergent representation of a typifed manual laborer: Matthew: Hey, dirty fat guy in the corner: how do you like having us here? Scott: I know that’s not your name. Could you tell us your real name? Matthew: [to the spirit] What kind of cigars do you like? Scott: He probably smokes cheap cigars. Jerry: Yeah, I don’t think he cares how expensive it is. Scott: [after a short pause] Is he still here? Jerry: Yeah, he’s sitting over there. He gets these little grins every so often. Scott: Probably ‘cause he knows we can’t do anything to him. What should we call him? Big Bubba B? Marc: Yeah, I don’t know. Scott: He’s probably a mobster. Jerry: He’s ignoring me, so I can’t really tell. Scott: What an asshole. Matthew: Do you like to hurt women? Did you hurt women down here? Is that why you like to be alone? Jerry: Women didn’t like you very much, did they? Didn’t like your looks? In this interaction, the typifed empersoning process is triggered by Jerry’s vague description of the man upon entering the boiler room. Having heard no prior claims about this man’s presence, the team builds a characterization of the man primarily upon the “facts” presented via Jerry’s extrasensory claims. Then, while Jerry narrates the man’s actions and reactions, Matthew and Scott improvise upon his descriptions and attribute characteristics to the spirits that they think may beft a man of his (apparitional) physicality, attitude, and location in the dark recesses of the basement. Collectively, they construct a typifed representation of a misogynistic, sexually frustrated man whose poor grooming habits and standoffsh attitude mark him as a “dirty fat guy,” “an asshole,” and maybe even a “mobster” in the eyes of the team. I witness another instance of typifed empersoning when I join Jeremiah and Allison as they investigate a mid-nineteenth-century farmhouse with members of the Ghost Investigators. The house, a well-maintained but plain two-story structure with white siding, sits near a gravel road and is encircled by a fat, open feld. As members of the Ghost Investigators load their equipment into the home, Jeremiah and Allison stand at the edge of the gravel road, staring up at the second-foor windows as though they are watching someone. After a minute, Jeremiah sighs and says:

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There’s a girl upstairs by the window looking out. She’s practicing writing and looking out the window just wanting to go outside, but her mother won’t let her. [pause] Gosh—all she does is cough. Poor thing. “Can you see what she looks like?” I ask. “She’s probably about seven,” replies Allison. “Her hair comes down to her shoulders. Sort of a dishwater blond. But I can’t see her face. I only see her from behind.” Jeremiah interjects: She’s watching people farm. There’s a wagon with really large wheels on it and some people tilling the soil behind horses. And there’s two boys running around who keep calling her out to play, but she can’t because she’s so sick. She can’t breathe; all she does is cough. Given the time period, I assume it must be consumption, or what we call TB [tuberculosis]. There was no such historical record—or, in fact, even a paranormal claim—of a young girl dying of tuberculosis associated with this property. Instead, Jeremiah’s descriptions of the girl and the surrounding scene seem to be inspired by the age and location of the building, as farming was common in the area during the mid-nineteenth century. Likewise, his assumption that the girl is suffering from tuberculosis is likely tied to the home’s age, since this disease was rampant in the United States during the nineteenth century. Building upon Jeremiah’s emergent empersoning work, Allison produces a slightly more detailed physical description of the girl. However, in her description the girl remains anonymous—both faceless and nameless. The two sensitives attribute minimal affectivity (a vague sense of longing to play) and no agency in the girl’s passive gazing from the secondfoor window. The outcome of this collaborative empersoning is the construction of a typifed representation of a disembodied person who displays very few characteristics of mindedness, distinctiveness, or co-presence. Later that same evening as I chat with members of the Ghost Investigators during a break, a pair of middle-aged female team members, Nancy and Vicki, recount an experience they had during an investigation of an abandoned hospital. We are discussing the team’s investigative methods and tools when Vicki stops talking, glances over at Nancy with a playful gleam in her eye, and says, “You wanna tell him about last weekend? The role-play?” Nancy then begins describing what occurred: Nancy: We actually did role-play, re-enacting a surgery. One of the guys from our group was the patient and then a team member who is a real nurse had on her scrubs. We were [acting like we were] gonna do a vasectomy on this guy, so we were laughing and joking around— Vicki: It was like a Saturday Night Live skit. Nancy: —but at the same time we had all of our equipment going. The patient was given his [using air quotes] “anesthesia” and the nurse started counting down from ten. She goes, “Ten, nine, eight, seven, six,” and then says, “That’s it, you’re out.” We played back the [audio] recorder later

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and we heard [mimics a deep, whispery voice] “Five, four, three.” Something was enjoying it and counting down. I get goosebumps just to talk about it now! Vicki: The thing I think is funny is that clearly this wasn’t a real surgery. So he [the spirit] had a sense of humor. He knew we were playacting and he was part of the game (emphasis in original). As with the two examples above, Nancy and Vicki knew of no reports of a male spirit haunting the surgery room. As a result, in their attributions of personhood they are unable to attribute a name or any specifc characteristics to the spirit aside from gender, which they assumed based on the deep voice captured on an audio recorder that was in the room. After listening to this recording during data review following the investigation, the two retroactively construct a representation of a male spirit who seems quite at ease with his circumstances and eager to play along with the investigators. Nancy and Vicki attribute playfulness and a sense of humor to the spirit, which serves as evidence of the spirit’s capacity for some level of minded, intersubjective behavior. However, the disembodied person remains typifed because the investigators lack further information about the spirit’s identity, physicality, self-history, and other features of personhood. Nancy and Vicki are thus limited to surface-level attributes that only allow them to construct a typifed representation of the person haunting the hospital.

Identifed empersoning Identifed empersoning occurs when investigators possess information about one or more deceased individuals who, either by way of historical record or local lore, are associated with a reportedly haunted property. Spirits who are identifed are generally those who lived, worked, and/or died at the location and are therefore presumed to have some kind of emotional attachment to the place. Unlike typifed empersoning, in this mode investigators can identify spirits by name. These spirits are also identifed in relation to the roles they fulflled in the setting while alive. As structural symbolic interactionists have theorized, one’s sense of self is composed of many personal identities that correspond to roles an individual enacts while occupying a social position. As Stryker (1980: 57) points out, “Attaching a positional label to a person leads to expected behaviors from that person and to behavior toward that person premised on expectations.” Identity, then, is in part the result of how others interact with a person through the set of role expectations placed upon that person. In the case of identifed empersoning in the context of paranormal investigation, knowledge of the role that a deceased individual formerly fulflled in a setting is used to construct a representation of the person that relies upon attributions of traits associated with the role rather than the specifc individual. This, in combination with being able to name the spirits, enables paranormal investigators to construct disembodied persons who are more complex than the nameless

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entities produced through typifed empersoning, yet still lacking distinct personality traits or other individuating features. Several members of the Ghost Investigators engage in identifed empersoning during an investigation of a beautifully restored Victorian-era home. After the team sets up their video cameras, audio recorders, and electromagnetic frequency detectors throughout the house, team leader Roger sits us down in the parlor and tells us the history of the property. According to his research, a couple named Charles and Mary Grossman built the home in the late nineteenth century. They raised six children in the home, including Edward and Anna, whose names became pertinent in the course of the investigation. Roger also reports that sensitives who have previously investigated the home claim that the father, Charles, is an overbearing spirit who does not allow his wife, Mary, to communicate with paranormal investigators. After this prefgurative empersoning, Roger and his second-in-command, Gary, begin an electronic voice phenomena (EVP) session in the parlor. Roger turns on his Ovilus and switches it to phonetic mode. In this mode, the device produces phonemes such as “ah,” “eh,” and “it,” that (according to folk theories within the subculture) spirits can use to construct words. Roger directs his questions toward the original inhabits of the home, asking, “Is there anybody here in the Grossman House tonight that would like to speak to us? If so, could you start by telling us your name?” After a pause, he encourages the spirits to interact with the Ovilus, saying, “There’s a black box in my hand. You can communicate with us by talking through this box. Can you tell us your last name?” The Ovilus makes “bu,” “eh,” “oo,” and “ee” sounds, which Roger interprets as attempts to communicate. “Who are we talking to right now?” he asks. “Are you one of the children? Tell us your frst name.” Almost as in response, the Ovilus produces an “eh” sound. “Was that a name?” I ask. “Yeah,” Roger replies, “but I don’t know if that was Ann or Ed. It was kinda hard to [interpret].” He asks the spirit to repeat the name, but the Ovilus only spits out “oh,” “it,” and “at” sounds. This causes Roger to say, “You’re not making a lot of sense. Can you try harder?” The Ovilus continues to produce random “oh” and “it” sounds, so Roger shift his attention to Mary. He inquires, “What was the name of the lady of the house?” and waits for a reply. After twenty seconds of silence, Roger comments, “Now it stops. That’s funny ‘cause the psychics said that the man would not let her speak. That he suppressed her” (emphasis in original). Looking for affrmation, he turns to Gary and says, “You remember that, Gary?” to which Gary replies, “Yeah.” Roger attempts to reassure Mary, saying, “It’s okay. You can tell me your name.” Hearing only silence, he asks more directly, “Is your name Mary?” Again, he receives no reply through the Ovilus despite waiting for ffteen seconds. “Nothing,” he comments, looking over to Gary as though the silence confrms that Mary is indeed being silenced by her husband, Charles. “That’s weird,” Gary states in support of this interpretation. Through a combination of established historical records and emergent information that they perceive as evidence of paranormal activity, Roger and

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Gary collaboratively construct an encounter with the spirit of either Edward or Anna, and infer that Mary may also be present but effectively silenced by Charles. The research conducted and conveyed by Roger prior to the EVP session establishes a set of facts that form a basis for interpreting the sounds emanating from the Ovilus. Similarly, extrasensory perceptions reported to Roger by sensitives also inform this interpretive work by providing a paranormal explanation for the Ovilus’ silence when Roger attempts to contact Mary. This combination of prefgurative and emergent empersoning increases Roger’s and Gary’s confdence that they are in contact with the spirits of two members of the Grossman family. However, because the historical records and sensitive impressions of the home contain only limited details, the personhood that is constructed for these spirits remains rooted in relatively vague attributions of personality based on the types of social roles previously fulflled by the spirits (child and mother) and a stereotypical gender dynamic between the domineering husband and his submissive wife. Along with information presented on the basis of sensitive impressions and technological devices, identifed empersoning may also incorporate claims of unusual sensory experiences that investigators associate with the presence of a specifc spiritual entity. For example, one evening I join Upper Midwest Paranormal for an investigation of a Tudor-style three-story building that previously functioned as a private residence and a business. In its current form, it serves as a public museum that houses memorabilia from the early part of the twentieth century. Among the clutter of paintings, photographs, and artifacts on the frst foor is a large wooden desk with a male mannequin, dressed in early twentieth-century business attire, sitting behind it. This mannequin is intended to represent Dr. Warner, a physician who used the property as his home and place of business in the Twenties. Unfounded rumors also circulated among local paranormal investigators that Dr. Warner used the third foor as a laboratory where he conducted experiments on small animals. Hoping to fnd out if the rumors are true, team leader Matthew instructs Chad and Heidi to conduct an EVP session on the third foor. I join them, as does Sasha, a paranormal enthusiast who asked to participate in the investigation following her attendance at a paranormal conference at which Matthew was a featured speaker. Upon arriving at the third foor, Chad instructs us to sit roughly equidistant from one another in a hallway that runs the full length of the building along the northern wall. As we fnd our places, he inspects the team’s equipment that they placed on the third foor prior to the investigation. These devices include several electromagnetic feld (EMF) detectors, a vibration sensor, and a data logger that records barometric pressure and temperature. Once we are settled, Chad begins an EVP session, asking, “Dr. Warner, I understand you like to practice on animals. Is there a particular animal you experimented on most?” After a ten second pause, Heidi inquires, “Were you practicing surgical procedures?” Following this question, Sasha calls out from the end of the hallway, “Umm, I’m hearing a ringing in my ear. There was a sudden change from a normal sound to, like, closed-ear ringing. It’s in my left

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ear only.” “And it just kicked in?” asks Chad. “Yeah,” Sasha replies, adding, “It’s still ringing.” Chad asks Heidi to grab an EMF detector and walk down to where Sasha is seated. He is curious whether there may be high levels of EMF in the vicinity, which could cause pressure and ringing in one’s ears. After she arrives at the end of hallway, he asks, “Heidi, how’s EMF?” After a short pause, she responds, “It’s minimal but it’s there. Like 0.5 [milligauss].” Returning to the EVP session, she inquires, “Is somebody over here? Are you Dr. Warner?” Ten seconds later, she asks, “Dr. Warner, do you not like it when we talk about your surgical procedures that you used to do up here? Are you embarrassed by it?” The team receives no audible response nor any other sign of the doctor’s presence. Shortly thereafter, Sasha announces that her ear has stopped ringing. Taking the absence of any sensory abnormalities as a sign that the spirit may have left the area, the team concludes the EVP session and moves to a different part of the building. In this instance, the team’s pre-investigation research and paranormal claims associated with the property establish a prefgurative script as to who “should” haunt the location and why. These expectations inform the emergent empersoning that is triggered by Sasha’s claim that her ear begins to ring immediately following the questions about Dr. Warner’s animal experiments. Moreover, the assumption that Dr. Warner’s spirit is the cause of Sasha’s strange sensory experience is further reinforced by Heidi’s subsequent questioning, in which she implies that the ringing in Sasha’s ear is the spirit’s method of expressing displeasure with the team’s questions about his animal experiments. Chad and Heidi imbue Dr. Warner’s ghost with some limited emotionality and selfhistory, in that they propose that his spirit is embarrassed. Moreover, by associating the ear ringing with Dr. Warner, they imply that his spirit is capable of agentic intersubjective behavior that expresses his presence as well as his displeasure. Ultimately, like the empersoning of the spirits believed to haunt the Grossman home, the person that emerges from the team’s interpretive work at the museum is linked to a specifc historical fgure with documented ties to the location. Nonetheless, this empersoning offers only surface-level details of Dr. Warner’s personality, and is grounded in unfounded assumptions about a general category activity of activity—animal experimentation—in which a person enacting the role of medical professional may have engaged during this time period. This combination of personal identifcation of the spirit and role-based inferences about the general activities and attitudes that are plausibly attributable to this spirit are characteristic of identifed empersoning.

Individualized empersoning Individualized empersoning is distinguished by the attribution of distinct personality traits and other characteristics that imbue a spirit with a fully formed individual identity. Paranormal investigators impute complex emotions, as well as personal tastes and preferences, to these spirits. They also construct these

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spirits as minded individuals who are capable of meaningful intersubjective action. As with identifed empersoning, investigators are able to name the spirits who reportedly haunt these locations; however, in individualized empersoning they also provide physical descriptions of these people. This mode of empersoning also involves attributions of a sense of self-history (including memories of one’s own death), agency, and intersubjectivity that are more detailed than any such claims made in identifed empersoning. In short, these spirits are regarded as “people without bodies,” as several investigators stated. During the investigation of the Highwayman Inn that was described in Chapter Three, I observe an especially interesting instance of individualized empersoning. Along with other historically documented and folkloric claims, paranormal investigators believe that the hotel stands on the location of textile mill that used child slave labor. In an example of prefgurative empersoning, Jessi, the hotel’s caretaker, reports to the team that the spirits of these children haunt the basement and tend to congregate in one room in particular. Taking her guidance, the investigators and I follow Jessi into the basement and through a central corridor, where she turns and enters the third room on the right. Scanning the room with my fashlight, I can see a set of eight mismatched, dilapidated chairs arranged semi-circularly around a small table near the center of the room. I also notice two grapefruit-sized rubber balls on the foor: one is yellow and the other is blue. As we fnd places to sit, Jessi informs us that two children—Johnny, a seven-year-old boy and Betsy, a ten-year-old mentally disabled girl—enjoy playing with paranormal investigators who visit the property. To see if the children are interested in playing, Jessi gently tosses the yellow ball toward the back of the room. The ball bounces several times and then begins rolling back toward us, following an unusual S-shaped path as it does so. After seeing the ball’s movement, the investigators enter a lively phase of emergent empersoning. Inferring from the ball’s strange rolling pattern that a ghost must have affected the ball’s trajectory, Teresa exclaims, “Wow! Hello kids!” Attempting to identify the spirit, Samantha asks, “Is that Johnny?” Jessi once again gently tosses the ball, which again moves in unusual ways. “It’s going around in a circle, right around that other ball,” Sue reports. “Right through the low spot on the foor,” adds Ted. “That’s freaking insane!” exclaims Tommy, seemingly implying that the movement is a sign that the ball is being manipulated by some paranormal force. “Looks like we have a little soccer player in here,” Samantha states, adding to the emergence of a unique identity for the spirit they believe to be moving the ball. After Samantha’s comment, the ball settles into a divot in the concrete foor, slowly rocking back and forth as it does so. Samantha interprets this rocking motion as a sign that a child is playing with the ball, and excitedly says, “It’s so cute when it rocks back and forth like that. It’s like somebody’s doing that.” In a singsongy tone, she asks, “Are you doing that? It’s so cute!” Suddenly, Teresa exclaims, “Look at the blue ball! Now it’s moving!” Indeed, the blue ball begins to slowly roll across the foor, despite the fact that none of us

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touched it. “Is there more than one child here?” Samantha inquires. “They like to play. They like the interaction,” Jessi suggests, thereby framing the movement of the balls as the direct result of agentic actions by multiple child spirits. As the blue ball comes to a rest near Sue, Teresa grabs the yellow ball from the divot and rolls it across the foor, saying, “I’d like to play with you, okay?” The yellow ball rolls in a semi-circular pattern around the seating area before heading back toward Teresa and lightly bumps into her right foot. “That was so nice. What a sweetheart!” Samantha remarks with the enthusiasm of a supportive parent. Teresa says, “Thank you very much,” implying (like Samantha) that a child spirit intentionally guided the ball back to her foot in a playful show of affection. Reaching down, Teresa tosses the yellow ball again. This time, it comes to rest about six feet away from her, near the blue ball. This fact could have been interpreted in several ways: as a sign that the ball’s movements did not result from any minded action on the part of a spirit; as an indication that a spirit was present but no longer wanted to play with Teresa; or that the spirit intended the yellow ball to come to rest near the blue ball for some reason. Teresa chose the last of these three options. Using the two balls as stand-ins for two child spirits she believes are present, she explains, “This ball [the yellow one] wants to stay close to the other ball because it doesn’t know me. I’m a stranger here.” Attempting to reassure the child spirit moving the yellow ball, she adds, “It’s okay! I won’t hurt you! I just wanna have fun!” Building on this line of interpretation, Jessi suggests that the spirit of Johnny is moving one of the balls and rhetorically asks, “Is he teasing you?” Samantha voices the intention of the child spirits, saying “Keep away! Keep away!” Turning her attention back to the other investigators, she comments, “They’re probably giggling their little heads off right now.” Also imputing thoughts and feelings to the spirits, Teresa responds, “They’re probably saying, ‘Who’s this crazy lady wanting to play ball with me?’” In this extended instance of individualized empersoning, the investigators initially build off of Jessi’s claims, which prefguratively populate the space with several child spirits. Jessi’s actions and comments also establish the initial framework for interpreting the balls’ movements. Because she notes that the children enjoy playing with visitors, the investigators are primed to perceive the motion of the two balls as evidence of one or more spiritual presences. Once the investigation is underway and the investigators start playing with the balls, they embellish Jessi’s claims with their own emergent empersoning work. In so doing, they construct two child spirits—one of which is tentatively identifed by name—who want to play but are also somewhat fearful of strangers. In the ensuing interaction, they attribute mindedness and co-presence to these children by implying that they are capable of feeling emotions and engaging in agentic, intersubjective actions. Lastly, the investigators project distinctive personalities onto the spirits through remarks about the children being “nice” and “giggling their little heads off.” I witness a second instance of individualized empersoning involving a child spirit while investigating a modest one-story mid-nineteenth-century

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home with members of two teams: Roger from Ghost Investigators, and Pattie, Jeremiah, and Allison from Riverside Phantom Chasers. This home now serves as a public museum exhibiting artifacts and stories from the various ethnic groups that settled in the area during the previous two centuries. Upon our arrival, two museum docents provide us with background information about the families who once lived in the home. They do not, however, share any paranormal claims about the property. The night begins with Allison and Jeremiah conducting a walk-through of the location. Pattie follows them to jot down their sensitive impressions while Roger and I wait. Upon their return, Jeremiah and Allison claim that they sense the presence of a young boy who is hiding under a stairway in the basement. Jeremiah remarks: When I went downstairs [to the basement] and went into the back room, I instantaneously felt the presence of a fve-year-old boy. I felt that he either fell down the stairs or a coal chute. He’s scared. And his parents are looking for him. Supporting Jeremiah’s description, Allison says, “I got basically the same. About the same age [as Jeremiah reported], and about yay tall.” As she says this, she holds her right hand horizontally about three feet off ground. Continuing, she adds, “I see his hair being like a sandy blond, and he’s wearing little pants and old-fashioned shoes.” With this emergent description of the child spirit fresh in their minds, the investigators decide to conduct an EVP session in the basement. I follow them down a set of creaky wooden stairs into a room full of boxes and seasonal decorations. We navigate through the clutter to reach the abandoned staircase. Upon reaching this location, Roger pulls an EMF detector and an Ovilus from his equipment bag. He sets the Ovilus to dictionary mode—in which it speaks complete words rather than phonemes—and holds his EMF detector in front of his body, about three feet off the ground. Meanwhile, Jeremiah, Allison, and Pattie stand back a bit, as though they are emotionally feeling the space out before joining the EVP session. Almost immediately after turning on his equipment, Roger exclaims, “Oh, look at that! Right away, 5.8 [milligauss].” “Yep,” I reply, looking at the screen on his EMF detector as the numbers steadily rise to 6.4 milligauss. Suddenly the word “passed” emits from the Ovilus. Interpreting this as the boy’s attempt to communicate, Roger asks, “Did you die down here? Did you pass down here?” After a few moments of silence, the Ovilus says, “Compare.” Seemingly confused by this utterance, which does not appear to relate to his line of questioning, Roger ignores the word. Instead, he inquires, “How did you die? Did you fall down the stairs?” After ten seconds, the word “Kim” emerges from the Ovilus. Confused, Roger asks, “Jeremiah, you were picking up on a boy down here, right?” Before Jeremiah can respond, Roger proposes, “I guess Kim could be a boy’s name too.” I inquire, “Tell us more. Who is Kim?”

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After a short silence, the Ovilus says, “Trapped.” Speaking in a somber tone, Jeremiah states, “Yes, defnitely trapped.” He states this with an assurance in his voice that indicates he already knew through extrasensory means that the boy was unable to leave the basement. Clutching a brick support column, he then closes his eyes and leans slightly forward. His posture and appearance of intense concentration give the impression that he is trying to tap into spiritual energy somehow attached to the structure of the building. As Jeremiah does this, Allison works her way as close as possible to the base of the abandoned stairway. She kneels down, as though she wishes to speak face to face with the child spirit. With the sensitives in these positions, Roger continues the EVP session. “Are you trapped down here? Did you become trapped when you fell?” he asks. “Are you lookin’ for your mommy? Don’t be afraid, we’re just here to talk with you.” Speaking in a whisper, Jeremiah interjects, “There’s too many people. He’s scared. Hiding.” Attempting to reassure the child, Allison speaks in a soothing, motherly tone, “Hey sweetheart, we’re here to help. You don’t have to be afraid. I’m a mommy. You can come up and talk to me.” Continuing, she points to me and adds, “You can come up to this recorder that Marc is holding. It’s a way for you to speak to us and give you a voice because we might not be able to hear you.” A few moments later, the Ovilus says, “Mark.” My heart jumps when I hear this, as in that instant I think that perhaps the child spirit is indeed able to see and hear us. My excitement is short-lived, however, because a moment later Jeremiah whispers, “That’s the name I got for him earlier.” Roger speaks up once again. Showing us that the screen on his EMF detector now reads 0.0 milligauss, he states, “I’m not getting anything over here anymore. He must have moved back.” With this latter comment, Roger points toward the dark recess under the abandoned stairway, implying that the child spirit became overwhelmed by the presence of so many people and moved further back to a more familiar space in the basement. “You don’t need to be afraid, okay?” Allison says in an attempt to reassure the child. She continues, “You don’t have to stay here anymore. Your family is looking for you.” Indicating that he is in direct extrasensory communication with the boy, Jeremiah replies, “He says they’re angry.” Reaching out with her right hand toward the base of the stairway, Allison tries to comfort the child. “No baby, they’re not angry! Not anymore. You wanna hold my hand? C’mon, it’s okay.” Building off of his earlier comment, Jeremiah reports: This is what I’ve got in my mind’s eye: he’s afraid of his Papa. He got in the coal and got his good clothes dirty, so Papa’s gonna be mad. And since Papa rules with an iron fst, he’s scared. With an anguished tone that indicates increasing desperation in her attempts to comfort the boy, Allison urges, “Nothing can hurt you now! Absolutely nothing! You are safe, you are loved. Your family on the other side loves you.” As soon as she says these words, the word “Ease” comes from the Ovilus. “That’s

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right!” Allison exclaims, a tone of relief in her voice as she says these words. Feeling as though she has fnally comforted the boy, Allison closes the EVP session with a reassuring message to the little boy. “Mark,” she begins, “we just want you to know that you’re free to leave anytime. And your daddy is not gonna be mad, and your momma is not gonna be mad. I promise you! You go home” (emphasis in original). In this instance, the investigators use sensory, extrasensory, and technological information to collaboratively construct the ghost of a young boy who is trapped in the museum’s basement. Despite the boy’s disembodied state, the sensitives attribute to him distinct physical characteristics and emotions that range from sadness and fear to relief. Like the children who reportedly play with investigators at the Highwayman Inn, this little boy is also capable of intersubjectivity. In this case, intersubjective communication occurs through telepathic communication with Jeremiah and speaking through the Ovilus. Allison also infers intersubjectivity from the word “Ease,” in that she interprets this word as indicative of the boy being consoled by her efforts to comfort him. Initially, the investigators attribute two names to the child spirit (“Kim” and “Mark”) based on words produced by the Ovilus. Later, the second of these names is affrmed by Jeremiah, whose claim that he received the name through extrasensory perception adds legitimacy to the name “Mark.” Collectively, the investigators draw upon prefgurative comments by Jeremiah and Allison, the features of the setting (a dark basement corner with exposed brick columns and an abandoned stairway), and props introduced into the setting (the Ovilus and the EMF detector) as resources in their individualized empersoning of the child spirit.

Intimate empersoning The fnal mode of empersoning is fairly rare in paranormal investigation and is reserved for encounters in which one or more of the investigators shared a close relationship with the person who they now believe is haunting a location. Like individualized empersoning, intimate empersoning also relies upon attributions of unique physical and non-physical features. The primary difference is that these descriptions are based on direct knowledge of the deceased person’s physicality and personality rather than presumptions based on historical documents and ghost lore. Another feature distinguishing intimate empersoning from the other three modes is that investigators’ personal memories of the person while they were living serve as interpretive resources in the empersoning process. Aside from these sources of information, intimate empersoning is also informed by aspects of the location being investigated—its setting and props (Goffman 1959)—as well as events that occur during an investigation. Earlier during the same investigation of the Highwayman Inn described in the previous section, the investigators and Jessi conduct an EVP session in the hotel lobby. Everyone except for Ted sits sat along the outer walls of the lobby, while Ted slowly paces back and forth across the lobby, looking at the screen

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on his oscilloscope. The original goal of this session is to contact the spirit of a woman who allegedly committed suicide in the hotel, and Ted says he is looking for the electromagnetic “fngerprint” of a biofeld-like EMF waveform somewhere in the lobby. He hopes that by locating such a waveform he can essentially fnd the exact location of the woman’s spirit. This, in turn, will allow the other investigators to direct their EVP questions to this location, perhaps asking the spirit to manipulate a nearby object or make herself known by visually manifesting in some form. However, after several minutes of inviting the spirit to appear and communicate, the investigators are frustrated by a lack of response. Ted declares the lobby to be “pretty dead, but not in a good way” and suggests that the group move to a break room area adjacent to the lobby. As soon as he reaches this area, Ted exclaims, “Oh! Check it out people!” Hurrying to where Ted stands, I see a sine wave pulsing on the oscilloscope screen. Jessi arrives soon afterward, and I move aside so she can see the screen as well. As she glances at the screen, Jessi identifes the location where Ted is standing as a favorite hangout spot for Chet, a former maintenance worker at the Highwayman who had recently died of cancer.1 “Right where you’re looking at is where Chet always used to sit,” she says. After she makes this remark, Ted looks at the screen of his oscilloscope and states, “Oh, it’s gone,” in reference to the waveform. Presuming that the appearance of this waveform in this exact location is evidence of the presence of her deceased co-worker and friend, Jessi requests, “Chet, can you come back babe? If that was you, let me see ya.” Almost instantly, Ted exclaims, “Oh, there it is!” and shows us his oscilloscope. On the screen appears a waveform that looks just like the one that we had seen a minute earlier. “Thank you baby,” says Jessi. Hoping to confrm that the waveform is indeed the “fngerprint” of Chet’s spirit, Jessi then asks, “Chet, you need to fnd a way to validate your presence.” Almost as if in response, the waveform on Ted’s oscilloscope slightly changes shape and becomes more stable, leading Ted to declare, “Look at that waveform! That’s the kind of waveform I’ve got when I’ve encountered what I thought was a disembodied consciousness” (emphasis in original). Looking for affrmation that Chet would not hurt the investigators, Samantha asks Jessi, “He was supposed to be very nice, right?” Jessi enthusiastically responds, “He is. He was studying to be a minister. He would never hurt you.” She then adds that Chet believed in ghosts and “swore he would come back if he could,” thus adding intimate details from their friendship that supports the emerging paranormal interpretation of events. In this instance, Jessi is able to draw upon her specifc knowledge of her friend’s behavior patterns, temperament, and expressed desire to return as a ghost to make sense of the data that appears as a waveform on Ted’s equipment. Based on her awareness that the break room was Chet’s favorite place to relax, Jessi imbues the oscilloscope’s EMF readings with a name, personality, and personal history. Moreover, she guides the group’s interpretation of the disappearance and reappearance of this waveform by attributing these changes

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to Chet’s intelligent, agentic efforts to prove his spiritual presence. Without her personal knowledge of Chet’s habits and personality, the group may have still interpreted the waveform as a sign of a spiritual presence. However, the interpretation would likely have been much less detailed and would not have identifed a specifc person who was haunting his former place of employment. I observe a second instance of intimate empersoning during a séance (previously described in Chapter Three) at a mid-nineteenth-century home that the homeowner, Rob, is restoring. He asked the group of paranormal investigators to conduct this séance after he saw the misty white apparition of a Victorianera woman manifest in his living room one day. The group participating in the séance includes members of the Riverside Phantom Chasers (Brett, Allison, Jeremiah, and Pattie); Jeremiah’s wife, Jenn; homeowner Rob; and two of Rob’s friends, Mike and Anna. We head to the master bedroom on the second foor to begin the séance since Rob owns several birds whose squawking would make it very diffcult to conduct an EVP session or be able to focus on what the sensitives are saying. When we arrive at the master bedroom, Allison directs us to sit in a circle on the foor and join hands. She arranges quartz crystals and polished stones in the center of the circle, and surrounds these with battery-powered tea lights. She then leads the group in a brief protection ritual (see Eaton 2015) before attempting to contact the female spirit that Rob reportedly saw. Before long, she instead directs her attention toward a male spirit who she sees standing in the hallway leading to the bedroom. She reports that the spirit is connected in some way to Mike and Anna, and asks them, “Did you have a male recently pass?” Anna responds, “Uh huh.” “I knew it,” Allison declares. “Like a brother?” she inquires in a tone indicating she is unsure of the exact relationship. Anna shakes her head side to side to say “No,” and Allison follows up with the comment, “No? It’s a close relationship.” Getting no reply from Anna, she exhales and continues. Looking toward Anna, Allison says, “Let me just tell you what I see, okay? He was taller, like six foot. Dark hair. He’s right behind you in the hallway.” As she points toward the hallway, we all heard a motorcycle revving on an adjacent street. Joking, Rob says in an exaggerated tone, “It’s a ghost motorcycle!” Everyone except Jeremiah laughs at this comment. I feel Jeremiah, who is seated directly to my right, unclasp his left hand from my right hand and begin rubbing his neck, as though the muscles are sore. A moment later, he states, “I gotta stand up because of my arthritis.” He stands and moves to a couch that is directly behind me. I join hands with Anna to reform the séance circle as Allison continues asking questions about the male spirit in the hallway. “Was it sudden?” she inquires, getting an affrmative “Mmhmm” from Anna in response. “Did it involve his head?” Allison follows up, once again getting an affrmative reply from Anna. Sensing that she is on the right track, Allison elaborates on her claims, adding some specifc sensory information. “Okay, ‘cause it’s like someone walked up and thumped me on the forehead,” she states. “And I’ve got so much pressure on my ears. It seems like swelling of

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the brain.” She pauses and then begins to say “This feels like” before stopping again. After a few seconds, Allison makes an “uhhewww” sound, as though she is witnessing something gruesome. She then fnishes her sentence, uttering the words “like trauma” in a voice that conveys disgust. Following her statement, we all sit in silence for several moments. Finally, Mike speaks in a somber, whispery tone. “Decapitation,” he begins. “I had a friend who was decapitated a couple of months ago.” A chorus of shocked “Ehhs!” and “Ohhs!” breaks the calm of the room. Once this reaction subsides, Anna and Mike describe the deceased man’s physical appearance in ways that correspond to Allison’s earlier description of the male spirit. “He was young. And dark haired,” Anna says. “And six-foot tall,” Mike adds. “My God! How did that happen?” Allison asks with a notable waver in her voice. “Motorcycle accident,” Mike replies. Picking up on this fact, Brett chimes in: That’s interesting, because there’s a theory that when they’re [spirits] trying to send us a message they can infuence the environment. So maybe those motorcycle noises could be some sort of sign. Building off of Brett’s proposal that the spirit may have manipulated the physical environment to send a message to us, Jeremiah reframes his neck pain as a sign from the spirit rather than arthritis, which was his original claim. Referring to the idea of a “sign” from the spirit, he comments, “For me, it [the sign] was that I was just sitting there and my neck was killing me.” To clarify what he means, I inquire, “Do you think that was connected to this person who was decapitated?” Asserting that there is a direct connection between the two, Jeremiah quickly responds, “Most defnitely.” After some more chatter about the motorcycle sound, Allison turns to Anna and Mike and asks, “Was it a cousin?” Both Anna and Mike inhale quickly as if in shock, and I feel Anna’s hand clench mine. “Yeahhh,” Mike slowly replies in a tone that expresses disbelief at the apparent accuracy of Allison’s abilities. Seeing that she has identifed the type of relationship Mike had with the deceased individual and that this person’s death was quite traumatic from both Anna and Mike, Allison quickly adds some consoling words: He says “I’m okay” and “I’m sorry.” [He sounds] sort of like [he’s] disappointed, like [he means] “I’m sorry for doing something stupid.” Do you know what I mean? “I s’pose,” Mike offers as a reply, his voice trembling as though he is about to cry. In this instance, the spirit is intimately empersoned through a combination of extrasensory knowledge claims, sensory experiences, and the personal knowledge that Anna and Mike possess about the man who died. The process begins with Allison’s emergent description of a spirit she sees in the hallway. These details become meaningful when they are identifed by Anna and Mike

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as similar to the physical description and manner of death of Mike’s cousin. During this period, the motorcycle noise intrudes, initially as a joint sensory experience that is not meaningful in the context of the séance. However, with Mike’s revelation that his cousin was decapitated in a motorcycle accident, this sound becomes very important to the construction of an identifable and agentic spirit who is attempting to communicate with the séance participants. This, in turn, affords Jeremiah an opportunity to characterize his sore neck as a physical manifestation of his extrasensory contact with the spirit, thus adding another sensory claim to the evidence of the male spirit’s presence. Finally, Allison further empersons the man by speaking for him and apologizing for the “stupid” decision that led to his death. Even though the name of the spirit is not revealed (though it is known to Anna and Mike), he is intimately empersoned through attributions of a distinct identity, a set of memories, emotionality, and an ability to exert agency over the physical world to make his presence known.

Theoretical contributions As noted at the outset of this chapter, I argue that the concept of the “person” is underdeveloped in symbolic interactionist literature. Even when the “person” is identifed as an “elemental social identity” (Sanders 2003:418) that is distinct from other concepts such as the self, personhood is presumed to be associated with a physically embodied entity (Cahill 1998). While other symbolic interactionist work has extended personhood to non-human physical objects (e.g., Vannini 2008), my examination of the empersoning of spirits shows that personhood does not require physicality in order to be applied to an entity. Moreover, personhood can be attributed to a non-physical entity even if no valid evidence is presented that the entity to whom personhood is applied ever existed in any physical form. For example, no historical documentation shows that a boy named Johnny worked as an enslaved child laborer on the location where the Highwayman Inn now stands. Nonetheless, the paranormal investigators (and Jessi) who are present for this investigation come to an agreed-upon defnition of the situation in which they perceive themselves to be interacting with a minded, distinctive, and co-present disembodied spirit. Thus, not only is embodiment not a requisite condition for personhood status to be applied; existence itself is not necessary for an entity to achieve the status of “person.” As a socially accomplished status, personhood only requires that those who are engaged in empersoning processes believe themselves to be interacting with a living or non-living object (in the Meadian sense) that they perceive as exhibiting some degree of mindedness, distinctiveness, and/or co-presence. This chapter also situates empersoning in social, structural, and temporal contexts. In the case of paranormal investigation, empersoning occurs among like-minded people who share a foundational ontological assumption that ghosts are real. This baseline agreement is key to their interpretive work.

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While they may disagree about whether or not a particular sensory, extrasensory, or technological event constitutes evidence of a disembodied person, they agree that it is possible for such entities to exist and communicate with the living. Embeddedness in a subculture—and, more immediately pertinent for teams, an idioculture (Fine 1979)—that supports this belief enables paranormal investigators to collaborate in various modes of empersoning actions without the ontological reality of the subject of their empersoning (the ghost) being called into question. In theory, group membership would not be necessary for empersoning to occur: an individual could emperson an object through a mental conversation with themselves in which personhood is negotiated, for example. However, one’s membership in a like-minded group certainly strengthens empersoning by providing an interpretive support system that collectively maintains personhood status once it is applied. This is particularly important for marginalized beliefs, such as those shared by paranormal investigators. In the end, the four modes of empersoning developed in this chapter help paranormal investigators sense spirits in two ways. First, they imbue these entities with senses, in the form of emotions, self-history, and agency. The spirits become disembodied, but otherwise fully formed, individuals, with desires, motivations, and habits that are similar to those of living humans. This makes sense of them as persons, conscious (and self-conscious) beings who possess mindedness and distinctiveness. In addition, paranormal investigators also sense spirits by incorporating these disembodied persons into interactions that bridge the divide between life and death. Through their “entrainment” (CamposCastillo and Hitlin 2013) in interactions with the living, ghosts are treated as though they are co-present members of a social encounter. This embeddedness in social interactions further imbues ghosts with personhood by making them— and ostensibly their agentic actions—meaningful within the lives of paranormal investigators. Whether the outcome of empersoning is a fully formed image of a complex individual or a typifed representation built upon cultural stereotypes, this process affrms for paranormal investigators the existence of ghosts. In turn, it enables them to feel more confdent that human consciousness—including their own—can survive physical death and live on in some ephemeral form.

Note 1 Some minor details of this story have been changed to protect the confdentiality of the location and the people involved in this account.

References Alger, Janet M. and Steven F. Alger. 1997. “Beyond Mead: Symbolic Interaction between Humans and Felines.” Society and Animals 5(1):65–81. Barken, Rachel. 2014. “Caregivers’ Interpretations of Time and Biography: The Experiences of Caring for a Spouse with Parkinson’s Disease.” Journal of Contemporary Ethnography 43(6):695–719.

116 Empersoning spirits Berger, Peter L. and Thomas Luckmann. 1967. The Social Construction of Reality: A Treatise in the Sociology of Knowledge. New York: Anchor Books. Bogdan, Robert and Steven J. Taylor. 1989. “Relationships with Severely Disabled People: The Social Construction of Humanness.” Social Problems 36(2):135–48. Cahill, Spencer E. 1998. “Toward a Sociology of the Person.” Sociological Theory 16(2):131–48. Campos-Castillo, Celeste and Steven Hitlin. 2013. “Copresence: Revisiting a Building Block for Social Interaction Theories.” Sociological Theory 31(2):168–92. Clarke, Roger. 2012. A Natural History of Ghosts: 500 Years of Hunting for Proof. New York: Penguin. Cooley, Charles H. 1902. Human Nature and the Social Order. New York: Scribner. Davies, Owen. 2007. The Haunted: A Social History of Ghosts. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Eaton, Marc A. 2015. “‘Give Us a Sign of Your Presence’: Paranormal Investigation as a Spiritual Practice.” Sociology of Religion 76(4):389–412. Fine, Gary A. 1979. “Small Groups and Culture Creation: The Idioculture of Little League Baseball Teams.” American Sociological Review 44(5):733–45. Finucane, Ronald C. 1996. Ghosts: Appearances of the Dead and Cultural Transformation. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books. Goffman, Erving. 1959. The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. New York: Anchor Books. ––––––. 1961. Asylums: Essays on the Social Situation of Mental Patients and Other Inmates. Garden City, NY: Anchor Books. ––––––. 1963. Stigma: Notes on the Management of Spoiled Identity. New York: Touchstone. ––––––. 1966. Behavior in Public Places: Notes on the Social Organization of Gatherings. New York: The Free Press. Gubrium, Jaber F. 1986. “The Social Preservation of Mind: The Alzheimer’s Disease Experience.” Symbolic Interaction 9(1):37–51. Irvine, Leslie. 2004. “A Model of Animal Selfhood: Expanding Interactionist Possibilities.” Symbolic Interaction 27(1):3–21. Lipman, Caron. 2016. Co-Habiting with Ghosts: Knowledge, Experience, Belief and the Domestic Uncanny. London: Routledge. Mead, George Herbert. [1934] 1962. Mind, Self, and Society from the Standpoint of a Social Behaviorist, edited by C. W. Morris. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Meese, James, Bjorn Nansen, Tamara Kohn, Michael Arnold, and Martin Gibbs. 2015. “Posthumous Personhood and the Affordances of Digital Media.” Mortality 20(4):408–20. Owens, Erica. 2007. “Nonbiologic Objects as Actors.” Symbolic Interaction 30(4):567–84. Pollner, Melvin and Lynn McDonald-Wikler. 1985. “The Social Construction of Unreality: A Case Study of a Family’s Attribution of Competence to a Severely Retarded Child.” Family Process 24(2):241–54. Sanders, Clinton R. 1993. “Understanding Dogs: Caretakers’ Attributions of Mindedness in Canine-Human Relationships.” Journal of Contemporary Ethnography 22(2):205–26. ––––––. 1995. “Killing with Kindness: Veterinary Euthanasia and the Social Construction of Personhood.” Sociological Forum 10(2):195–214. ––––––. 2003. “Actions Speak Louder Than Words: Close Relationships between Humans and Nonhuman Animals.” Symbolic Interaction 26(3):405–26. ––––––. 2007. “Mind, Self, and Human-Animal Joint Action.” Sociological Focus 40(3):320–36. Stryker, Sheldon. 1980. Symbolic Interactionism: A Social Structural Version. Menlo Park, CA: The Benjamin/Cummings Publishing Company.

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Taylor, Nicola. 2007. “‘Never an It’: Intersubjectivity and the Creation of Animal Personhood in Animal Shelters.” Qualitative Sociology Review III(1):59–73. Thomas, Jeannie Banks. 2007. “The Usefulness of Ghost Stories.” Pp. 25–59 In: Haunting Experiences: Ghosts in Contemporary Folklore, edited by D. E. Goldstein, S. A. Grider and J. B. Thomas. Logan, UT: Utah State University Press. Vannini, Phillip. 2008. “A Queen’s Drowning: Material Culture, Drama, and the Performance of a Technological Accident.” Symbolic Interaction 31(2):155–82. Waskul, Dennis D. 2003. Self-Games and Body-Play: Personhood in Online Chat and Cybersex. New York: Peter Lang. Waskul, Dennis, Mark Douglass, and Charles Edgley. 2000. “Cybersex: Outercourse and the Enselfment of the Body.” Symbolic Interaction 23(4):375–97. Waskul, Dennis with Michele Waskul. 2016. Ghostly Encounters: The Hauntings of Everyday Life. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press. Zhao, Shanyang. 2003. “Toward a Taxonomy of Copresence.” Presence: Teleoperators and Virtual Environments 12(5):445–55. ––––––. 2005. “The Digital Self: Through the Looking Glass of Telecopresent Others.” Symbolic Interaction 28(3):387–405.

5

Emplotting spirits1

As important as it is to attend to the ways that spirits are sensed through the interpretive processes detailed in the previous two chapters, one must also place the micro-sociological sensing of spirits in a broader cultural context. The conclusions arrived at by paranormal investigators as to the existence of ghosts, in general, and the presence of ghosts in a particular setting, are infuenced by preexisting cultural representations of ghosts as well as place-based stories about alleged ghostly activity in a location. Ghost lore, for example, includes many themes that infuence public expectations of what a “real” haunting should look like (Bennett 1999). In folkloric tales, hauntings frequently result from improper burial, traumatic or sudden death, unfnished business, revenge, and attachment to material objects, among other causes (Davies 2007; Finucane 1996). These tales also describe a set of sensory cues—such as the smell of perfume or the sound of footsteps—that indicate the presence of a spirit (Davies, 2007). With a recent “spectral turn” (Goldstein, Grider, and Thomas 2007:206) in popular culture, these representations are presented to the public every night through the reality-style paranormal investigation shows that are so popular among the investigators I contacted during my research. These shows emotionally invest viewers in the hunt for ghosts (Koven 2007) and model for viewers the best methods to use when searching for spirits (Molle and Bader 2013). The actual location in which a haunting reportedly (and quite literally) takes place is also a critical feature of the sensing of spirits. Sites of war, slavery, untimely death, criminal activities, or burial (especially of Native Americans) are all commonly featured in both historic ghost legends (e.g., Clarke 2012) and contemporary, commodifed media representations of ghosts and hauntings (e.g., Hill 2011; Sayed 2011). Likewise, liminal spaces—such as attics, basements, stairways, and doorways—also frequently feature in these accounts (Lipman 2016; Waskul and Waskul 2016). Visitors who are familiar with these representations arrive at these locations with expectations that predispose them to interpret sensory experiences in such locations as evidence of a haunting. As Bell (1997:831) says, we “give ghosts to places” by relying upon existing supernatural narratives as interpretive resources when attempting to make sense of our personal experiences in purportedly haunted locations. In this way, the

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meaning of a narrative environment is pre-constructed for paranormal investigators, especially if the location they intend to investigate has been featured on one or more paranormal television show. Symbolic interactionist work on narrative identifes storytelling as a “socially situated practice” (Gubrium and Holstein 2009:2) in which narratives are both constructed and constructive. Narratives are constructed in the sense that, either individually or in collaboration with others, stories “are assembled to meet situated interpretive demands” (Gubrium and Holstein 1998:166). This assemblage of stories involves narrative work that takes place in particular narrative environments. Narrative work is “the interactional activity through which narratives are constructed, communicated, and sustained or reconfgured” (Gubrium and Holstein 2009: xvii). It involves collaborative processes of story production and negotiation through which a meaningful account is crafted. Narrative environments are the “contexts within which the work of story construction and storytelling gets done” (Gubrium and Holstein 2009: xvii). These contexts include the spaces in which narratives are produced as well as the organizational and cultural conditions in which narration takes place. Narratives are also constructive, in that narration is “a way of fashioning the semblance of meaning and order for experience” (Gubrium and Holstein 1998:166). Maines (1993) refers to this constructive work as “emplotment,” which he describes as “the use of plot, setting, and characterization that confer structure, meaning, and context on the events selected” (Maines 1993: 21). He identifes emplotment as the most important element of narratives because it is through this technique that stories convey to the audience a central theme and a sense of order in the narrative structure. When performed by small groups through symbolic interaction, this emplotment work is strongly infuenced by the idioculture (Fine 1979) of that group. As explained in Chapter Two, an idioculture consists of the norms, values, beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors that are dominant within an interacting group and constitutes a “consensual meaning system” (Fine 1979: 744) for the group. An idioculture shapes members’ perceptions of themselves, their group, and the world around them. It also infuences their actions, and directs both individual and group actions in ways that are generally congruent with the values and goals of the idioculture. This does not mean that idiocultures do not involve confict. In fact, idiocultures tend to be structured according to a status hierarchy whereby group leaders or those with more idiocultural prestige have more power to determine (and enforce) which beliefs, practices, accounts, and even people are granted more legitimacy within the group. Moreover, actions, stories, and people are more likely to be valued by group members if they conform to the idioculture’s knowledge regime, which in the context of paranormal investigation consists of science-dominant, sensitive-dominant, and balanced investigation styles (see Chapter Two). As Maines (1993) notes, the construction of narratives typically involves both confict and consensus, as different constituencies and storytellers possessing varying levels of situational authority attempt to shape the fnal form of the account. Ultimately, accounts that reinforce

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idiocultural status systems and knowledge regimes are more likely to be treated as factual accounts by group members than those that deviate from or challenge these idiocultural elements. As Smith explains, a factual account “is not just a record of events as they happened, but of events as they were seen as relevant to reaching a decision about the character of those events” (1978: 24). Factuality is accomplished through the “cutting out” (Smith 1978) of certain details so that one cohesive account may be constructed. The perceived factuality of a given narrative is also infuenced by the authority of the narrator, which in turn is based on the narrator’s social status or claim to frst-hand knowledge of the “facts” being reported (Fine 1979, 2010; Smith, 1978). These accounts are frequently presented as objective reports of fact, though they are inevitably products of social interaction and symbolic interpretation. For paranormal investigators, the ambiguity of the factual status of an alleged haunting is exacerbated by the fact that the subject of such a narrative account— a ghost—is by its very nature (if a ghost may be said to have a “nature”) invisible to most observers. The “fact” of a ghost’s existence is therefore based on interpretations of purported physical manifestations of its presence, such as footsteps, disembodied voices, or objects moving without any readily available and externally observable explanation for this movement. Thus, stories of ghostly encounters are “highly situated, contingent, and emergent within a context of interpretation over time” (Waskul and Waskul 2016: 40). They require a great deal of narrative work and draw upon meanings associated with their narrative environments, such as claims of death or trauma, in order for tellers and audiences to achieve a “working consensus” (Goffman 1959) as to the factuality of a haunting narrative. Using one particularly active paranormal investigation conducted by Upper Midwest Paranormal as a context for deeper analysis, this chapter shows how paranormal investigators co-construct a narrative that defnes for participants in the investigation what “really” happened. Through fve phases of narrative development, investigators engage in a collaborative, and sometimes confictual, process of emplotting ghosts in a narrative. This narrative integrates pre-existing cultural representations, place-based stories, and emergent interpretations into a cohesive tale of a haunting. This chapter also draws attention to how a team’s knowledge regime and status hierarchy affect which versions of the tale become part of the “real” story of what occurred. Lastly, this also illustrates how the “reality” of a haunting largely depends upon whether emergent narratives resonate with external expectations and reinforce internal power dynamics.

Narrative development and the haunting of the Highwayman Inn As mentioned in several previous chapters, the Highwayman Inn is a functioning hotel that has been featured on several reality-style paranormal television

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shows. In previous iterations, the Inn served as an illegal gambling house and brothel. Numerous deaths reportedly occurred on the property, including one documented murder in the late nineteenth century in which a hotel caretaker killed his daughter in the Inn’s basement-level coal storage room. Before the father was executed for the crime, he allegedly declared he would haunt the Highwayman forever. Paranormal investigators and employees of the Highwayman claim to see apparitions of the father and the murdered girl in the basement. Although the doorway to the coal storage room is now boarded up, there are reports of cries for help and strange beams of light emanating from behind the door. This has led some—including the hosts of paranormal television shows—to claim that the doorway is, in fact, a gateway to hell. Such claims have even spawned rumors that the basement was used for satanic rituals and animal sacrifces. The Highwayman’s reputation for being “famously haunted,” as Matthew describes it during a team meeting, is what draws Upper Midwest Paranormal to the location. As a science-dominant team, they are skeptical of the unsubstantiated claims of satanic rituals, suicide, and murder, but are nonetheless intrigued by the ghost lore related to the property. To prepare for the investigation, they review and discuss the televised representations of the Inn’s paranormal activity. After arriving at the site, they also listen as Jessi, the hotel’s caretaker, recounts numerous claims of ghostly—and perhaps even demonic— activity throughout the building. They then set up their equipment and conduct a thorough investigation of the property using their typical investigative tools. These include digital audio recorders, digital video recorders, motion sensors, vibration sensors, electromagnetic feld (EMF) detectors, devices that read temperature and barometric pressure, and a wide variety of trigger objects that are specifcally selected on the basis of claims about the identities of spirits who allegedly haunt the Highwayman Inn. Because the site was rumored to be a former gambling house and brothel, for example, the team brings whiskey, a cigar, and a Playboy magazine to entice the mobsters, gamblers, and “johns” that they think may haunt the Inn. Similarly, they bring religious items to anger the demonic entities that are supposed to haunt the basement. As shown below, the dramatic events that unfold during the investigation stimulate multiple waves of narration, in which competing accounts are proposed and, over time, mostly excluded from the offcial account of what “really” occurred. Using a dialogic analysis framework (Riessman 2008), I analyze the “narrative competitions” (Gubrium and Holstein 2009) and their subsequent resolution as examples of how paranormal investigators sense spirits by constructing narrative accounts of paranormal experiences that reinforce the reality of the existence of ghosts. These narratives weave together elements from pre-existing ghost stories, place-based accounts of death and tragedy, and interpretive claims that emerge in situ. Over the fve phases represented by the subheadings below, the members of Upper Midwest Paranormal collectively— though not always cooperatively—construct a cohesive narrative that defnes the Highwayman Inn as legitimately haunted.

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Narrative priming Narrative priming occurs prior to the events that will form the basis for a group’s story. In this phase, individuals consume pre-existing stories that shape their expectations and interpretations. For paranormal investigators, folkloric and media-based representations of ghosts and hauntings establish a general set of expectations for what a “real” haunting looks like. Place-based narratives, such as historical records and “deathlore” (Baker and Bader 2014) about a site, add important details about the nature of the alleged haunting of each specifc property. Together, such tales prime investigators to expect particular types of supernatural activity to occur and therefore steer interpretations of subsequent events. According to its portrayal on Dark Forces, a pseudonymously named realitystyle paranormal investigation show, the Highwayman Inn is one of the most haunted sites in the United States. The show describes the Highwayman as a “place that houses pure evil” and claims the Inn is associated with “organized crime, multiple murders, as well as satanic cult activity.”2 Much of the dramatized investigation of the location focuses on the story of the murdered child and her evil father. The hosts of Dark Forces repeat the claim that the boardedup doorway in the basement is actually a “portal to hell,” and allege that “devil worshippers” once used the basement for satanic rituals. One host even claims during the show that evil spirits inhabit his body and make him want to murder another cast member who is attempting to drive away demonic entities. By focusing on the murder of a child and emphasizing that it occurred in the basement of the Inn, Dark Forces reinforces cultural narratives that liminal spaces and sites associated with violent death or occult activity are more likely to be haunted (Davies 2007; Finucane 1996; Goldstein et al. 2007; Waskul and Waskul 2016). When I join the members of Upper Midwest Paranormal for a pre-investigation meeting, their conversation centers on the claims about the Highwayman presented on Dark Forces. Like the paranormal investigators studied by Baker and Bader (2014), Matthew begins by recounting the deathlore of the location: It was a hotel in the 1800s. There was a little girl who was murdered by her father in 1886. It’s believed that she was beaten to death in the coal storage room in the basement. This is an actual documented murder…. Supposedly this girl is supposed to be wandering around the Highwayman Inn (emphasis in original). Matthew’s use of the word “documented” indicates that he believes the veracity of the murder story itself, though his emphasis on the words “believed” and “supposedly” reveal lingering doubts about the claims presented on Dark Forces. This display of skepticism toward supernatural claims made on paranormal television shows is in keeping with the team’s science-dominant knowledge regime, which emphasizes rationality and skepticism. A few minutes later, Matthew reasserts this skepticism when Samantha casually refers to the boarded-up coal storage room doorway as a “hell portal,”

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using the language with which it was described on Dark Forces. Trying to distance his team from quasi-religious interpretations presented by television hosts, Matthew questions the doorway’s signifcance: Matthew: They [the hosts] call it a doorway, but I wonder if it was just a fricken’ hole in the wall that led to nothing. Marc: Well, it was for all of the coal, wasn’t it? Samantha: Yeah, that sounds right. Chad: [to Samantha] Just like your Christmas stocking? [team laughs]3 In conjunction with Matthew’s dismissal, Chad’s joke at Samantha’s expense serves two purposes: It reinforces Matthew’s interpretation and therefore his status as the most credible narrator on the team, and indicates that uncritical acceptance of supernatural explanations— especially those that appear on television—violates the team’s science-dominant knowledge regime. In response, Samantha concedes that Dark Forces’ claims about the doorway are probably “crap,” thereby signaling her loyalty both to the team’s knowledge regime and status hierarchy, in which Matthew is dominant. These statements during the pre-investigation meeting show that media representations may have primed the team members to expect certain kinds of supernatural activity, but these expectations were tempered by idiocultural factors, including the team’s knowledge regime and status hierarchy. Nine days after this meeting, the team and I arrive at the Highwayman Inn. We are greeted outside by Jessi, who then escorts us through the building and points out “hot spots” where paranormal activity allegedly occurs. As she walks through the Inn, Jessi tells colorful stories about the spirits that reportedly haunt the building. These include mobsters named “Butch” and “Blackie” who were reportedly shot in the hotel bar, a prostitute named “Miss Lulu” who allegedly died in a kitchen fre, a dancer named “Betsy” who committed suicide in the ballroom, and the story of the former hotel caretaker and his ill-fated daughter who died in the basement. Like the claims made on Dark Forces, Jessi’s stories reinforce the folkloric theme that violent and untimely deaths lead to hauntings. Furthermore, by linking the hauntings to distinct areas within the hotel, Jessi “emplace[s]” (Gieryn 2000) spirits within the Highwayman and grounds her accounts in the history and lore of the location. Along with the claims made on Dark Forces, Jessi’s stories identify focal points for the investigation and set expectations for the types of ghostly encounters we may experience.

Narrative emergence and contestation Narrative emergence begins when people overlay an unexpected experience with stories that attempt to answer the open-ended question, “What happened?” This phase of narrative development occurs in the brief period between the experience itself and the emergence of counter-narratives that challenge initial explanations. As Gubrium and Holstein (2009: 60) note, “the

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work of meaning making is foregrounded in liminal circumstances” because multiple narratives emerge in short succession after such an event. During this time, participants in the sense making process are afforded some “interpretive fexibility” (Pinch and Bijker 1984) as they draw upon multiple types and sources of evidence to overlay their experiences with meaning. In the subsequent phase of narrative contestation, people who experience, witness, or even hear accounts of unexpected events offer competing stories that offer distinct explanations for what happened and why. Those with higher status exert their authority by proposing or endorsing narratives that represent their viewpoints. They challenge storylines that deviate from the group’s knowledge regime, especially if these narratives are proposed by lower-status members. During narrative contestation, multiple competing narratives coexist as possible explanations for what “really” happened. Because this process occurs so rapidly after the emergence of an initial account, I have combined the two distinct phases of narrative development into a single analytic subsection. After the team members and I fnish setting up equipment and placing trigger objects on the main foor of the Highwayman Inn, we grab more equipment (audio and video recorders) and trigger objects (a Bible, a rosary, and two crosses) and follow Jessi to a weathered wooden door leading to the basement. As we arrive at the door, Jessi turns to the team with a stern look on her face and says in a somber tone: Alright people. I’m not trying to blow this out of proportion, but I cannot stress this enough. This down here is a totally different horse than what you’re dealing with upstairs. Upstairs is cranky old mobsters. Down here is them too, but something else [as well]. People wind up getting emotions that are not your own. You get angry. You get pissed. You get mean. You get agitated. If this happens, please tell somebody in your group, and you come out here and you shake it off. I don’t want to be jack-slapped. I don’t want to be hit. And I’ve seen stuff like this (emphasis in original). With that, Jessi slides the rusty metal latch to the left and pulls on the door, which squeaks as it swings open. We enter, our feet scuffng against the dirty foor as our eyes adjust to the dusky light of the basement. Much like she did when the team was walking through the main foor of the hotel, Jessi begins reciting a litany of claims about evil spirits who throw objects at people, manipulate investigators’ emotions, and occasionally appear as “shadow people” (dark human-shaped forms with no discernible features). Stopping at the room that Dark Forces claimed was the site of satanic rituals, Jessi states that the mafa used the room “for interrogating and killing people.” She also adds that during a recent investigation by another team, one paranormal investigator “broke down and ran out of here, cryin’ and sobbin’ like a little bitty baby.” Next, she leads us through a narrow pathway that stops near the boarded-up coal room doorway. Jessi motions toward the ground and states, “This is where I lost my preacher the other day. He fell down back there. His

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stomach was cut, his face was cut, his shoulders and fngers was all cut up.” Adding her own account, she continues, “I brought him in here because a couple of days before I had been punched [in] my chest. Two weeks ago. It’s been non-stop.” As Jessi speaks, Heidi suddenly disappears from my right peripheral vision. A second later, I hear the thump of her body hitting the concrete foor behind me, like someone dropping a heavy canvas duffel bag. I spin around to see Heidi laying on her back, approximately four feet back from where she was standing a moment earlier. In a quivering voice that conveys shock and fear, Heidi utters, “What the hell?!?” Jessi rushes over and states, “You got knocked, didn’t ya?,” implying that Heidi was attacked by a malevolent spirit. Heidi musters another “What the hell?” and begins to breathe heavily, as if she is about to cry. Matthew hurries from further down the basement corridor to help Jessi lift Heidi to her feet, and the two escort her out of the basement. In a daze, the remaining investigators (Chad, Samantha, Gabriel, and Todd) and I drift together at the site of Heidi’s experience to discuss what occurred: Chad: Was she just standing there? Was that not a trip backwards? Marc: No, that was defnitely a push. Samantha: She got pushed. Didn’t you see her chest? Chad: I didn’t see anything. I was over here [motioning further down the corridor, near the coal storage room]. Samantha: She got pushed. Her chest went back and she landed on her ass. Gabriel: Where was Heidi when she got pushed? Marc: Right here. That’s right where Jessi was when she said she got punched. Samantha: Heidi got knocked on her ass. In this excerpt, Chad, Samantha, and I engage in “collaborative editing” (Marvasti 2002) of the developing narrative. We each add a new detail or reinforce one another’s accounts in order to collectively arrive at the story that Heidi was pushed down by some paranormal force or entity. A moment later, Gabriel offers a naturalistic counter-narrative. He points to the ground where Heidi stood, remarking, “Look at how uneven this all is. You can’t jump to paranormal [explanations].” By linking his counter-narrative to the physical properties of the setting, Gabriel positions himself as a rational observer who is seeking a logical interpretation of events instead of rushing to a paranormal conclusion. Although his account aligns with the team’s avowed adherence to a scientifc epistemology, Gabriel is met with resistance from Samantha. She raises her voice and says, “She got shoved in the fuckin’ chest! She few back! It was not a slip. She did not catch herself, like when you slip.” Samantha’s assertion is based on sensory claims to have visually witnessed Heidi’s posture as she fell backward. Despite not witnessing the incident, Chad interjects in support of Samantha, saying, “I know. It’s not like she tripped.” In doing so, Chad effectively sponsors Samantha’s account, protecting it from Gabriel’s counter-narrative by virtue of his status as the highest-ranking member

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of Upper Midwest Paranormal present in the basement at the time. In a display of deference, Gabriel does not challenge Chad’s statement. A few minutes later, Heidi and Matthew return to the basement. Heidi is too shaken up to recount the incident, so Matthew provides his perspective. He reports: It looked like she was backing up and then she slipped. And I was like “What happened?” And then I could see by the look on her face that she didn’t slip. I was like “Okay, let’s just get up and get out then.” In his account, Matthew frames himself as a rational person by “warranting” (Childs and Murray 2010), declaring that he sought a non-paranormal explanation before accepting a paranormal alternative. He also signals his allegiance to the team’s science-dominant knowledge regime by asserting that he reached this conclusion by assessing observable data—in this case, Heidi’s facial expressions. Matthew’s position as team leader insulates the paranormal narrative from challenges by lower-status investigators like Gabriel, who again offers no rebuttal. This frst narrative contest results in a tenuous commitment to a paranormal narrative that reinforces the team’s status hierarchy, even as it contradicts their adherence to a skeptical, empirically-based epistemology. A second dramatic incident involving Heidi soon spurs another narrative contest. After taking some time to collect ourselves and refocus, we begin an electronic voice phenomenon (EVP) session in the room Dark Forces described as the site of satanic rituals and Jessi claimed was a mafa torture chamber. After ten uneventful minutes standing in near-complete darkness, I hear what sounds like shoes scuffng on the concrete foor, followed immediately by two heavy thumps similar to those I heard during Heidi’s frst experience. As Samantha screams in fear, I barely make out the shape of Matthew spinning to his left to grab Heidi as she leans backward against a concrete wall and stares blankly at the foor. Jessi rushes over to help Matthew guide Heidi toward the basement exit. As they go, Samantha announces, “You guys, I’m gonna puke!” She springs to her feet and runs toward the basement door. Concerned for her well-being, I run behind her and yell ahead to Matthew, “She’s gonna puke! Watch out!” Matthew kicks the basement door open just in time for Samantha and me to run past into the humid night air. While Samantha runs a short distance away to vomit on a hillside, Matthew sits Heidi down just outside of the basement and leans her back against a wooden fence post. I ask Heidi what happened, but she is too groggy to speak so Matthew provides his perspective: Matthew: She got pushed backwards. When I turned and looked, it looked like she was—like she would have fallen down but something was pinning her to the wall or holding her up. And then I grabbed her and lifted her up.

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Marc: Oh really!?! Matthew: I never felt any resistance. Marc: So she didn’t hit the ground? Matthew: No, she didn’t hit the ground. But I don’t know if she was actually holding herself up by her legs, or if she just had this… At this point Matthew trails off, as though he cannot fully accept what he seems to believe: that an unseen entity or some kind of paranormal force attacked Heidi for a second time. Still shaken by what had occurred, I return to the basement and tell the others what Matthew said. In response, Gabriel once again asserts a naturalistic counter-narrative, this time with the support of his teammate Todd: Gabriel: I was watching her, and it looked like if you suddenly leaned back, you’d go right against the wall. And that’s what it looked like she did. Chad: The question is did she get pushed or did she just kinda—. Gabriel: Lose her balance…. It could have been just her losing her balance. But don’t forget, when your adrenaline’s really pumping and you’re not used to the situation we’re in, your mind can go to a lot of different places. Todd: Like where she got quote-unquote “pushed”—I’m not calling her a liar, but the exact spot she was in you don’t even have to lift your toes up very far and you already lose balance. Chad: Yeah, it’s angled, I know. [pause] The only other interesting thing about that whole thing [the frst incident] is she felt like she was thrown down. As before, Gabriel positions himself as a rational, objective observer. He points out the physical features of the foor that could have caused Heidi to fall backward and implies in the phrase “your mind can go to a lot of different places” that other investigators are too clouded by fear to logically assess the situation. Similarly, Todd’s use of scare quotes around the word “pushed” and the disclaimer (Hewitt and Stokes 1975) that he is not calling Heidi a liar frame his skepticism as resulting from objective observations rather than personal bias. Despite Todd’s efforts to strengthen Gabriel’s counter-narrative, by the end of the interaction Chad pivots back to a paranormal explanation. His assertion that Heidi “felt like she was thrown down” undercuts Gabriel and Todd’s interpretations while simultaneously echoing Matthew’s earlier statement that “she didn’t slip.” Ultimately, this second narrative contest illustrates how important idiocultural authority structures are to the perceived credibility of accounts. Explanations that contradict the team’s knowledge regime but are endorsed by high-status members are more likely to be accepted than those that are congruent with the knowledge regime but championed by lowerstatus members or people who are marginal to the idioculture. While Gabriel, Todd, and Chad wait for Matthew to return, I walk back outside and fnd Samantha sitting with Jessi on a grassy embankment. When I arrive, Samantha is reporting waves of nausea as well as emotional fuctuations

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between deep sadness and violent rage. Crying and distressed, Samantha says she feels like she is channeling the spirit of a mobster who once owned the Highwayman Inn and wants to “punch Chad in the fuckin’ face.” Affrming Samantha’s belief that her emotions are being manipulated by spirits, Jessi turns to Samantha and says, “You’re pickin’ up on their emotions. These aren’t all your feelings” (emphasis in original). This affrmation resonates with Jessi’s earlier warning that we might experience unusual emotions while in the basement and her claim that another investigator recently fed the basement in tears. Having never experienced anything she perceived as a psychic event, Samantha continues to express disbelief and distress. In response, Jessi validates Samantha’s feelings by comparing them to her own emotional experiences during psychic episodes: Samantha: This just doesn’t make any fuckin’ sense to me at all! Jessi: When you’re feelin’ it, you know it’s real. Samantha: This is not me! This is not me! I’m not, I’m not—I don’t even believe in this shit! Jessi: When you’re going through it, you know it’s real. In the absence of Matthew and Chad, Jessi becomes Samantha’s primary source of validation. By appealing to truth claims grounded in feelings instead of empirical data, Jessi orients Samantha toward a sensitive style of interpretation. This puts Samantha at odds with Upper Midwest Paranormal’s knowledge regime and creates idiocultural conficts that play out over the next two phases of narrative development.

Narrative coalescence In the fourth phase of development, narrative coalescence, those who experience, witness, or hear about an incident refect upon it, telling and retelling multiple versions of events. As members of the group fll in details from their own perspectives and confrm one another’s accounts, their interpretations coalesce to form a single group narrative that they begin to treat as an objective account of events. In the process, dominant group members begin to delegitimize alternative accounts that do not support the coalescing group narrative. The team’s investigation of the Highwayman continues until 1:30 a.m., at which time the investigators and I collect our equipment and load it into their full-size SUV. While Matthew and Chad gather equipment in the basement, I join Samantha and Heidi, who are sitting on crumbling concrete steps in front of the Highwayman. They begin recounting the night’s events: Heidi: The frst time it happened it was like someone grabbed me like this [grabs the outside of my upper arms just below the shoulder], picked me up and threw me down. And then the second time it happened,

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somebody went like this [punching toward my sternum] really hard on my chest. Samantha: That’s what happened to Jessi a week or two ago. She said it was because we took the Bibles down [to the basement]. Heidi: Well, and Matthew said when he turned around it looked like someone was holding me against the wall. Notably, Samantha draws upon Jessi’s story as a source of validity, while Heidi’s phrase “Well, and” pivots the conversation toward Matthew’s account, indicating that she is more confdent in his interpretation of events. In addition, her physical performance of the narrative invites Samantha and me to relive the emotional and embodied experience of the two incidents, which Riessman (2008) notes is a means by which narrators increase the perceived credibility of their tales. Their conversation also shows that both women’s accounts are coalescing around a paranormal explanation, though they rely upon different forms of truth claims in reaching this conclusion. A short time later, Gabriel and Todd leave in their own vehicle while I join the others for a 30-minute drive back to our hotel. Right after we all climb into the SUV, Samantha attempts to draw attention to the fts of rage she experienced by stating, “I wanted to kill you all.” Rather than responding with concern or interest, Chad makes light of Samantha’s proclamation, saying, “Maybe it’s ‘cause you have your period. They [evil spirits] were getting absorbed up in your tampon.”4 Picking up on this theme, Matthew chimes in, “Hey, maybe you still got some up in there. You keep that shit!” With this comment, the SUV erupts in laughter. The derision directed at Samantha indicates that high-status team members doubt her claims that she was channeling angry spirits during the investigation and are therefore beginning to exclude her from the narrative development process. As Smith (1978) reports, those who are deemed mentally unstable are cut out of the sense making process because their grip on reality is questioned. In Samantha’s case, because her claims are based on feelings instead of empirically verifable data, they contradict the team’s knowledge regime and are consequently dismissed. As I later address, the dismissal of Samantha’s account also refects the team’s gendered bias toward male members’ explanations of events. In her case, this manifests not only in regard to the reference to menstruation but also due to the fact that, as a woman, her expression of emotionality makes her particularly vulnerable to being disregarded as an non-objective, unreliable narrator. To orient the team’s developing narrative back to physically observable events, Matthew shifts the conversation to Heidi’s experiences: Matthew: The frst time she got pushed, it looked like her legs came out from under her. It didn’t look like she got pushed backwards from my perspective because she was on a slope. I thought she just stepped back and lost her footing and just slipped. Chad: No, ‘cause the slope wasn’t enough to slip.

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Matthew: It wasn’t slippery. So quickly this is going through my head, along with the shock on her face. I’m like, “Alright, maybe I should help her up.” Marc: Well, Heidi said the second time—when she hit the wall—she doesn’t remember anything from the time she got hit to when she was sitting outside. Heidi: Yeah, I couldn’t really talk. It hit me in the chest so hard it knocked the wind— Matthew: So it wasn’t on the shoulder this time? It was on the chest? Heidi: Yeah, it was like a true slam. Matthew: It was the weirdest fuckin’ thing I’ve seen. I wish I had a video camera on, ‘cause from my eyes it looked like she was pinned against the wall. Samantha: I saw that, Matthew. Matthew: Her feet were not on the ground, but she was still being held up. And she was looking at me like this. And I was like “What the fuck!?! Stand up.” It was the weirdest thing I’ve ever seen (emphasis in original). This conversation illustrates the importance of idiocultural status position as a source of legitimacy in the narrative development process. As team leader, Matthew controls the conversation and selectively incorporates information provided by Chad and Heidi when this information supports the coalescing paranormal narrative. When Chad suggests that the foor was not sloped enough to cause Heidi to slip, Matthew reiterates that it “wasn’t slippery”; likewise, when Heidi says she was hit in the chest during the second incident, Matthew asks for clarifcation. He allows Samantha to play a supporting role when she confrms that she also saw Heidi pinned against the wall, but her ability to steer the narrative is greatly curtailed. Meanwhile, Gabriel and Todd’s naturalistic counter-narrative is never introduced by Matthew or other team members. This inattention suggests that accounts offered by marginal participants are given less credence than those of core members, even if these accounts align with a group’s epistemology. It also shows that counter-narratives are especially vulnerable to exclusion if those who champion these alternative explanations are absent during the critical early phase of narrative coalescence. The fnal encounter in this phase of narrative development occurs the following day when the seven of us review video footage of Heidi’s second incident. The video clearly shows Heidi’s head and legs moving a moment before she hits the concrete wall but does not defnitively prove why she moved. The inconclusive nature of the footage allows for both skeptical and paranormal interpretations, as shown in the following exchange: Matthew: Watch her head. See her foot. Chad: [to Heidi] So your foot did go up. You went up— Matthew: She had one foot on the ground, though. Gabriel: Like she lost her balance. Matthew: She made it all the way back to the wall.

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Gabriel: Well, she’s not far from the wall (emphasis in original). Consistent with the previous evening, Gabriel sticks to a naturalistic account. By this time, though, Chad and Matthew are committed to a paranormal narrative, so Matthew rebuts Gabriel’s counter-narrative. Meanwhile, Heidi sits silently on the bed and defers to Chad and Matthew’s interpretive authority to defne her experience. On a second viewing of the video clip, Gabriel again proposes a naturalistic explanation. This time Matthew cuts Gabriel out of the narrative process, as indicated by his use of “your” after Gabriel’s comment: Matthew: [to Heidi] Your head moves before your feet do. Your head goes back and then you see your feet go forward. Your foot, I should say. The other foot is back still. So I don’t know, [maybe] when you got pushed back you were able to step back with one but your other foot was like this [mimics left foot kicking out in front of body]. ‘Cause that seems to be the motion that we get. Gabriel: It’s like an off-balance thing, ‘cause that’s how I get when I’m off balance. Matthew: But your head moves frst. Your head moves out of frame (emphasis added). In this exchange, Matthew uses his higher status to present his version of events as the only legitimate interpretation. Even though Gabriel’s counter-narrative resonates with the team’s science-dominant knowledge regime, it is narratively “silenced” (Gubrium and Holstein 2009) by Matthew’s decision to ignore Gabriel and respond only to Heidi in the above exchange. This is in keeping with Fine’s analysis of idiocultures, in which he concludes that “potential cultural items are more likely to be accepted into a group’s idioculture when proposed by a high status member” (1979: 742). Matthew’s leadership position gives him the power to propose a paranormal explanation that seemingly contradicts the team’s scientifc epistemology without concern that he will be a target for derision.

Narrative crystallization During narrative crystallization, the narrative is purifed of any remaining deviant elements through “boundary-work” (Gieryn 1983), in which some explanations are excluded and delegitimized while others are treated as factual representations of an experience. Those explanations that support the idiocultural status hierarchy of the group engaged in interpretive work are given the most credence. When such accounts do not already conform to the group’s knowledge regime, they are reconstructed in ways that reinforce this epistemological perspective. The resulting narrative is then reifed as the “real” account of events.

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In a series of follow-up interviews several weeks after the investigation, Matthew, Heidi, and Samantha all still adhere to paranormal explanations. However, each draws the boundaries of legitimacy in slightly different ways. In his interview, Matthew discursively positions himself as rational by highlighting his identity as a scientist and “warranting” (Childs and Murray 2010) his account by pointing out that he twice reviewed the video evidence: In regards to what happened at the Highwayman, the scientist in me is always playing it over and over in my head: what I saw, what I didn’t see, other possibilities that could’ve caused what happened. But after everything that happened, and after thinking about it over time and reviewing the video that we do have of the second time, I do think she was pushed. I don’t think I can come up with a plausible reasoning for what happened to her after reviewing the video (emphasis in original). Matthew also attempts to lend scientifc legitimacy to his explanation by proposing that Heidi’s experiences may be explained by psychokinesis (the ability for someone to move an object using only mental energy), a theory that he emphasizes “is something that has been somewhat accepted in certain circles of physics” (emphasis in original). He frames Heidi’s experiences as empirical evidence of the paranormal, thereby eliminating any apparent confict with his team’s scientifc knowledge regime. By suggesting that psychokinesis is at least marginally accepted within the established scientifc community, Matthew also draws a boundary between his explanation and other paranormal claims, such as those made by Samantha and Jessi. To further purify the developing narrative of accounts rooted in claims of psychic spirit communication, Matthew delegitimizes Jessi’s version of events by impugning her character, implying that she may be drug addicted or afficted by psychoses: She’s taking the sensitive route and saying she’s connected to the spirits… and she’s getting information through her “gift”…. I mean, take it from my perspective: I just met you. I don’t know who you are. I don’t know what sort of psychoses you have, what drugs you’re on. And so you believe that things [spirits] are irritated. Okay, great. That’s one theory. That’s a hypothesis we can test (emphasis in original). These kinds of personal attacks are common in scientists’ rebuttals of theories and fndings that contradict their own, and serve to protect scientists’ preferred explanation by discrediting those who challenge this theory (Gilbert and Mulkay 1984; Pinch and Collins 1984). Even though she was the one who allegedly experienced the two attacks by some unseen entity or force, Heidi’s confdence in the paranormal narrative is largely based on the fact that the two highest-ranking members of her team, Matthew and Chad, endorse such an explanation:

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It’s hard for me to rationalize it. For me, I guess I have to look more toward the paranormal aspect of it, which is very diffcult for me to do but I have no other rational explanation for it…. And when you have Matthew and Chad actually going, “Okay, I saw it with my own eyes and I have no other way to put an explanation on it,” that makes it even easier for me to go, “Okay, I think this could have been a paranormal experience that I had.” Because people who defnitely would have tried to fnd a more rational explanation for it are unable to do that. So that makes it a little more valid to me. It is also important to note the role gender plays in Heidi’s explanation. She subordinates her ability to make sense of her own experiences to two “rational” men, thus reinforcing the team’s authority structure and reproducing a gendered hierarchy that treats men as unbiased sources of truth (a point I return to in the fnal section of this chapter). Like Matthew, Heidi also questions Jessi’s credibility, saying “she doesn’t understand our scientifc approach” because she is “much more spiritual” in her approach to paranormal investigation. By drawing a boundary between “scientifc” and “spiritual” ways of knowing and treating the former as more valid, Heidi reaffrms the legitimacy of her team’s knowledge regime and purifes the narrative by dismissing Jessi’s account of what occurred at the Highwayman Inn. Returning to the media representations that the team reviewed prior to the investigation, Heidi draws parallels between her experiences and events depicted on Dark Forces: I hate to say that it puts more validation in some of the things that Dark Forces have said about the place ‘cause I think those guys are just so off the wall with the things they say. But when you look at the things that they’ve had happen to them there and you’re like, “Okay, well that’s not far off from what we’ve had happen” (emphasis in original). Much like Matthew’s statement that he accepted a paranormal explanation only after thoroughly reviewing video evidence, Heidi’s claim that she usually thinks that Dark Forces is “off the wall” in its depiction of hauntings positions her as a rational person who is aware that such shows’ dramatized representations are unreliable sources of data. Nonetheless, because her expectations were primed by the team’s review of the show, Heidi’s perceptions of her own embodied experiences are infuenced by representations of the Highwayman Inn on Dark Forces. She selectively defnes certain aspects of the show as legitimate evidence while displaying skepticism about the show in general. In so doing, Heidi contributes to the crystallizing paranormal narrative while protecting herself from the kind of ridicule Samantha faced when she gave credence to the show’s claims that there is a “hell portal” in the Highwayman’s basement.

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Neither Matthew nor Heidi ever brought up Samantha’s psychic claims in our interviews. Despite this lack of support from her teammates, in our interview Samantha remains convinced that she channeled multiple spirits during the investigation of the Highwayman Inn. Referring to the experience as “brain rape,” she asserts, “I personally think that Tony Soprano and some young girl were talking out of my mouth. There’s nothing I can do to prove that to you. And honestly, I don’t even care to.” Rejecting the team’s scientifc epistemology, Samantha relies instead upon her own feelings and Jessi’s claimed psychic abilities as her primary sources of validation: I felt like a very feminine young girl. Like a girl about in her twenties, with kind of wavy hair. And [I felt like] Tony Soprano, um, fat. Real fat in the middle, like just a big fat stomach. And it was weird ‘cause I was describing these people to Jessi and she goes, “Well, that was”—what’d she say—“Butch.” She goes, “He’s the fat one.” And then she said that girl was probably Betsy, and I’m like, “Don’t tell me that this is real!” ‘Cause that’s the part that I thought was just in my head. Like the psychics studied by Woofftt (2001), Samantha’s use of reported speech attributes factual claims to a person who claims to directly communicate with spiritual entities. Samantha treats Jessi as a credible narrator despite her awareness that doing so makes her seem, in her words, “either crazy or full of shit” in the eyes of her teammates. Her obstinate refusal to defer to the team’s knowledge regime and to Matthew’s ability as team leader to control the development of the group’s narrative poses a threat to the team’s idioculture. In fact, her contrary position was deemed so threatening to the knowledge regime and status hierarchy that Samantha was kicked off of the team not long after the Highwayman Inn investigation. This act purifed the narrative by silencing the last remaining counter-narrator. One month after the investigation, Matthew produces a written report detailing the team’s investigative efforts as well as the apparently paranormal events that occurred. This report further crystallizes the narrative by validating Heidi’s experiences and dismissing Samantha’s claims. To bring Heidi’s two incidents into line with the team’s knowledge regime, Matthew highlights the physically observable elements of her experiences, including her vocalizations and facial expressions. This reframes emotional experiences as observable phenomena, thereby packaging “irrational” emotions as empirical evidence leading to a “rational” paranormal conclusion. As stated in the fnal report: The shock and hurt that can be heard in Heidi's voice and seen in her face after each event would require years of acting classes to procure unnaturally. Heidi was not under the infuence of any balance altering chemicals during this investigation nor is she a clumsy person that randomly falls down. This event is unexplained and it is Upper Midwest Paranormal’s unequivocal

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opinion that Heidi was physically pushed two separate times while investigating the Highwayman Inn by something paranormal…. Upper Midwest Paranormal uses the term “paranormal” as it is defned, which is an experience or event that cannot be explained by current science. Matthew’s report concedes that “Samantha 100% believes that she was being affected by something outside of herself” but suggests that her experiences were actually caused by stress and exhaustion. The report continues: [T]he stress of the situation (lack of sleep and other issues) combined with…witnessing Heidi get pushed down not once but twice, could have sent Samantha to an emotional space she is not familiar with. Since we have no audio or video evidence to back up any claims that Samantha was being affected by some outside force, Upper Midwest Paranormal cannot conclude that Samantha was affected by an outside force. As with Smith’s (1978) analysis of the construction of factual accounts of mental illness, Samantha’s interpretations of her own experiences are ultimately dismissed by calling her emotional stability into question. Matthew chooses not to mention the physically observable elements of Samantha’s emotional experiences—her nausea following Heidi’s second incident, for example— and thereby marginalizes Samantha’s claims by portraying her as a hysterical woman. In addition, Matthew uses several techniques to increase the appearance of scientifc objectivity in the report. First, he uses impersonal, precise language that makes the conclusion seem to be based on observable facts alone (Gilbert and Mulkay 1984). Second, he states that Heidi’s experiences cannot be explained by “current science,” implying that they may be explainable in light of future scientifc discoveries and should therefore be granted a sort of honorary scientifc legitimacy. Lastly, by valorizing rationality and devaluing emotional experiences, Matthew grounds his appeals to legitimacy in a cultural discourse that affords hegemonically masculine ways of knowing—rationality, unemotionality, and technological mastery—the highest legitimacy (Connell 1987; Kendall 2000). This fnal report illustrates the critical role played by idiocultural dynamics in the formation of a crystallized narrative. The supernatural narrative presented in this report seems, on the surface, to contradict the team’s scientifc epistemology. Despite this, it becomes the defnitive account of what “really” happened because it is endorsed by high-status team members (especially Matthew) and reframes paranormal claims in ways that render these unthreatening to the team’s scientifc knowledge regime. Power relations between group members, as well as those between members and non-members, affect which accounts are incorporated into the crystallizing narrative and which are excluded. Likewise, accounts that align with or are adapted to the group’s knowledge regime become part of the offcial narrative, while those that

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cannot be adapted are silenced. Pre-existing cultural representations of ghosts and place-based tales of haunting infuence the formation of the crystallized narrative to the extent that they reinforce the idioculture’s status hierarchy and knowledge regime. In the end, all of these factors lead to a fnal narrative in which the Highwayman Inn is defned as truly haunted.

Theoretical contributions By emplotting Heidi’s experiences into a cohesive narrative that the group accepts as an objective record of the night’s events, the members of Upper Midwest Paranormal collectively produce a factual account (Smith 1978) that endorses the reality of ghosts. To construct this narrative, the team builds upon pre-existing cultural representations of what hauntings “should” look like or why ghosts “should” haunt certain locations. In addition, Upper Midwest Paranormal integrates placed-based paranormal stories into their expectations for the investigation and then, later, their interpretation of emergent events. Through both confict and collaboration, team members develop a narrative that “cuts out” (Smith 1978) accounts made by low-status participants and those that do not support the narrative endorsed by high-status individuals. Moreover, the investigators craft an account that reinforces their team’s knowledge regime even as it legitimizes a paranormal explanation of events. This chapter advances symbolic interactionist understanding of the narrative construction of reality by offering a multi-phase model of narrative development that integrates cultural, place-based, and emergent accounts. Within each of the fve phases, narrators make sense of their experiences by drawing upon folkloric tales, reality-style paranormal investigation shows, and stories of murder, crime, untimely death, and other macabre details rooted in the ground (sometimes literally) beneath the property being investigated. These interpretive resources shape the construction of reality that occurs between investigators when emergent events—such as Heidi’s two incidents—provoke sense making work intended to produce an explanation for these strange events. The analysis presented here also attends to the important roles that idiocultural epistemologies and power relations play in the interactive “emplotment” (Maines 1993) of group experiences. In the case of the Highwayman Inn investigation, proposed accounts are fltered through the idioculture of the group, which ultimately legitimates certain interpretations and dismisses others. I propose that the perceived validity of any account—and therefore its likelihood of becoming part of the crystallized narrative—is determined by three considerations. First, accounts are assessed on the basis of their cultural resonance. That is, does an explanation make sense in light of pre-existing cultural narratives about similar events? For paranormal investigators, this requires evaluating an emerging narrative’s resonance with folklore and media representations of ghosts. Heidi, for example, perceives a correspondence between her experiences and those portrayed on a reality-style paranormal investigation show. As a result,

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she feels more confdent that she was indeed attacked by a spirit or some kind of paranormal force. Likewise, Samantha’s belief that her emotions are being manipulated by evil spirits in the Highwayman’s basement echoes similar stories presented on Dark Forces. When emergent accounts such as these correspond to culturally legitimated ways of understanding such experiences, they are more likely to be perceived as valid (Bennett 1999). Secondly, participants evaluate proposed explanations on the basis of their situational relevance. The credibility of stories is judged in terms of their consistency with established stories about the location in which an incident occurs. At least initially, members of Upper Midwest Paranormal use Jessi’s accounts about evil spirits at the Inn as resources for explaining what happened to Heidi and Samantha during the investigation. The likelihood that Heidi and Samantha’s experiences would be interpreted as paranormal is also increased by the fact that the incidents occur in a basement, a liminal space commonly featured in ghost stories (Davies 2007; Waskul and Waskul 2016). More specifcally, they take place in areas of the basement where Jessi reports that similar events have recently occurred. As a result of the situational relevance of these events, initial sense making frames them as the results of physical and emotional manipulation by evil spirits. Finally, and most importantly, accounts that achieve both cultural resonance and situational relevance need to gain idiocultural legitimacy. This legitimacy rests on two considerations. First, narratives are judged in terms of their epistemological congruity. Stories that do not readily align with an idioculture’s dominant epistemology are either rejected or reinterpreted in ways that conform to the group’s knowledge regime. The rejection of Jessi’s claims of psychic knowledge illustrates the former tactic, while Matthew’s reframing of Heidi’s experience as possible empirical evidence of psychokinesis is exemplary of the latter tactic. Second, a narrative’s legitimacy is evaluated on the basis of its contribution to status reinforcement within the idiocultural group. If a narrator is a non-member or marginal member of the group, their stories are more likely to be dismissed even if they meet all of the other criteria for legitimacy. The rejection of Gabriel and Todd’s naturalistic counter-narrative may be explained as the outcome of their marginal status, which inhibits their ability to assert control over the narrative development process. On the other hand, if a narrator holds high status within the group or—alternatively—a high-status group member endorses a lower-status member’s account, the story is highly likely to be integrated into the dominant narrative. This is true even if aspects of the story deviate from one or more of the above listed criteria. Matthew’s control over the narrative and Chad’s sponsorship of Heidi’s claims both illustrate this fnal point. It must also be noted that the gender of narrators infuences which accounts are taken seriously. Through a series of discursive “manhood acts” (Schrock and Schwalbe 2009), the men in Upper Midwest Paranormal’s core team— most notably Matthew—attempt to elicit deference from women and assert control over men. Male control over the developing narrative silences the

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voices of women—namely Samantha and Jessi—whose more emotional selfexpressions are coded as irrational. The team explicitly uses Samantha’s status as a woman as a discrediting attribute in their association of her psychic claims with menstruation. More generally, they rely upon a discourse that invalidates her claims on the grounds that she is very emotional during the investigation. Jessi’s exclusion likely results in part from her outsider status relative to the team; however, her claims to possess psychic powers also put her at odds with the team’s knowledge regime by asserting that (feminine) intuition is a greater source of truth than (masculine) scientifc reason. Heidi’s accounts are accepted because they are validated by male team members and adapted to ft a scientifc explanation. Furthermore, her claims are also treated as legitimate because she displays deference to the male narrators (especially Matthew) and thereby reinforces the male-dominant status hierarchy. Lastly, Gabriel and Todd’s counter-narrative is dismissed for two main reasons. First, as marginal group members they do not possess the idiocultural standing necessary to assert that their version of events is the “real” one. Second, Gabriel and Todd’s gender ironically may have worked against them in this instance. Because it was proposed by men, their counter-narrative may have seemed more threatening to the status hierarchy of Upper Midwest Paranormal, which is unwilling to cede interpretive control to anyone (especially men) who challenges the authority structure. Ultimately, the outcome of this process illustrates how patriarchy can function as a mechanism of narrative control at the idiocultural level.

Notes 1 A previous version of this chapter appeared as: Eaton, Marc A. “Manifesting Spirits: Paranormal Investigation and the Narrative Development of a Haunting” Journal of Contemporary Ethnography 48(2):155–82. Used here with permission. 2 To maintain the location’s confdentiality, I have not included citations or references for the episodes of Dark Forces from which these quotes are excerpted. I also changed the name of this television show to protect the confdentiality of the location. 3 Some minor details in this excerpt were changed to protect the anonymity of the location and participants.The tone and most of the original content of the interaction have been retained. 4 For reasons that are not pertinent to this analysis, Chad was aware that Samantha was indeed menstruating during the investigation. Chad’s statement also draws upon a common folk belief that women have increased intuitive abilities during menstruation.

References Baker, Joseph O. and Christopher D. Bader. 2014. “A Social Anthropology of Ghosts in Twenty-First Century America.” Social Compass 61(4):569–93. Bell, Michael M. 1997. “The Ghosts of Place.” Theory and Society 26(6):813–36. Bennett, Gillian. 1999. “Alas, Poor Ghost!”: Traditions of Belief in Story and Discourse. Logan, UT: Utah State University Press.

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Childs, Carrie and Craig D. Murray. 2010. “‘We All Had an Experience in There Together’: A Discursive Psychological Analysis of Collaborative Paranormal Accounts by Paranormal Investigation Team Members.” Qualitative Research in Psychology 7(1):21–33. Clarke, Roger. 2012. A Natural History of Ghosts: 500 Years of Hunting for Proof. New York: Penguin. Connell, Raewyn. 1987. Gender and Power. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Davies, Owen. 2007. The Haunted: A Social History of Ghosts. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Fine, Gary A. 1979. “Small Groups and Culture Creation: The Idioculture of Little League Baseball Teams.” American Sociological Review 44(5):733–45. ––––––. 2010. “The Sociology of the Local: Action and Its Publics.” Sociological Theory 28(4):355–76. Finucane, Ronald C. 1996. Ghosts: Appearances of the Dead and Cultural Transformation. New York: Prometheus Books. Gieryn, Thomas F. 1983. “Boundary-Work and the Demarcation of Science from NonScience: Strains and Interests in Professional Ideologies of Scientists.” American Sociological Review 48(6):781–95. ––––––. 2000. “A Space for Place in Sociology.” Annual Review of Sociology 26(1):463–96. Gilbert, G. Nigel and Michael Mulkay. 1984. Opening Pandora’S Box: A Sociological Analysis of Scientists’ Discourse. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Goffman, Erving. 1959. The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. New York: Anchor Books. Goldstein, Diane E., Sylvia Ann Grider, and Thomas Jeannie Banks. 2007. Haunting Experiences: Ghosts in Contemporary Folklore. Logan, UT: Utah State University Press. Gubrium, Jaber F. and James A. Holstein. 1998. “Narrative Practice and the Coherence of Personal Stories.” The Sociological Quarterly 39(1):163–87. ––––––. 2009. Analyzing Narrative Reality. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications. Hewitt, John P. and Randall Stokes. 1975. “Disclaimers.” American Sociological Review 40(1):1–11. Hill, Annette. 2011. Paranormal Media: Audiences, Spirits, and Magic in Popular Culture. London: Routledge. Kendall, Lori. 2000. “‘Oh No, I’m a Nerd!’: Hegemonic Masculinity in an Online Forum.” Gender and Society 14(2):256–74. Koven, Mikel J. 2007. “Most Haunted and the Convergence of Traditional Belief and Popular Television.” Folklore 118(2):183–202. Lipman, Carol. 2016. Co-Habiting with Ghosts: Knowledge, Experience, Belief and the Domestic Uncanny. London: Routledge. Maines, David R. 1993. “Narrative’s Moment and Sociology’s Phenomena: Toward a Narrative Sociology.” The Sociological Quarterly 34(1):17–38. Marvasti, Amir. 2002. “Constructing the Service-Worthy Homeless Through Narrative Editing.” Journal of Contemporary Ethnography 31(5):615–51. Molle, Andrea and Christopher D. Bader. 2013. “‘Paranormal Science’ from America to Italy: A Case of Cultural Homogenization.” Pp. 121–38. In: The Ashgate Research Companion to Paranormal Cultures, edited by Olu Jenzen and Sally R. Munt. Farnham, UK: Ashgate. Pinch, Trevor J. and Wiebe E. Bijker. 1984. “The Social Construction of Facts and Artefacts: Or How the Sociology of Science and the Sociology of Technology Might Beneft Each Other.” Social Studies of Science 14(3):399–441. Pinch, Trevor J. and Harry M. Collins. 1984. “Private Science and Public Knowledge: The Committee for the Scientifc Investigation of the Claims of the Paranormal and Its Use of the Literature.” Social Studies of Science 14(4):521–46.

140 Emplotting spirits Riessman, Catherine K. 2008. Narrative Methods for the Human Sciences. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications. Sayed, Deonna K. 2011. Paranormal Obsession: America’s Fascination with Ghosts and Hauntings, Spooks and Spirits. Woodbury, MN: Llewellyn Publications. Schrock, Douglas and Michael Schwalbe. 2009. “Men, Masculinity, and Manhood Acts.” Annual Review of Sociology 35(1):277–95. Smith, Dorothy E. 1978. “‘K is Mentally Ill’: The Anatomy of a Factual Account.” Sociology 12(1):23–53. Waskul, Dennis with Michele Waskul. 2016. Ghostly Encounters: The Hauntings of Everyday Life. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press. Woofftt, Robin. 2001. “Raising the Dead: Reported Speech in Medium-Sitter Interaction.” Discourse Studies 3(3):351–74.

6

Making sense of sensing spirits

In the previous chapters, I explore the various ways that paranormal investigators sense spirits: how, in other words, they interactively co-construct meanings that affrm the existence of ghosts, and how they imbue these invisible beings with senses in their own right. In this chapter, we step back to consider how paranormal investigators make sense of the practice of investigating itself. In light of the fact that paranormal investigation exists outside of the boundaries of established science and religion, the practice is not embedded in a legitimized institutional context with well-established understandings of its inherent social and personal value. Scientists, for example, can be confdent that they are part of a community of researchers who are working to increase human understanding of the physical properties and laws that undergird all aspects of the material world. Similarly, religious leaders, as well as those who adhere to some form of established religious beliefs and practices, understand their endeavors to be valuable in several ways: as a means to achieve salvation and eternal life; as a source of moral community; as an ethical foundation for laws; and as a way of answering the most universal of human questions, “Why are we here?” and “What happens after we die?” Being dually marginalized by both institutionalized science and religion, paranormal investigation has both the freedom and the responsibility to establish its own set of claims regarding the personal and social value of this practice. As Bader et al. (2017) note, those who engage with paranormal beliefs tend to be motivated by two things: a desire for enlightenment and spiritual growth; or a hope that they can uncover compelling evidence of the paranormal, thus contributing to a new scientifc discovery. Those in the former camp, according to Bader et al. (2017), are less concerned with fnding “proof” of the paranormal than simply fnding some belief or practice that helps them develop a sense of spiritual truth and higher meaning. In contrast, those seeking scientifc discovery hope to document paranormal phenomena in order to present empirical evidence of these phenomena to the scientifc community and the skeptical public. Though they acknowledge that subcultures such as paranormal investigating blend aspects of both motives, Bader et al. present enlightenment and discovery as “two distinct spheres” (2017:45) within paranormal subcultures, implying that individuals within these subcultures adhere either

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to an enlightenment-centered motive or to a scientifcally oriented goal. My research builds upon these insights but complicates this dichotomy in several ways. In regard to building upon the work of Bader et al. (2017), themes of discovery and enlightenment are apparent in the motivations of paranormal investigators and in the meaning they derive from investigation. Sixteen of the forty-fve investigators I interviewed (36%) understand the practice of paranormal investigation as, at least in part, a pioneering scientifc endeavor that has the potential to uncover empirical evidence of ghosts. These investigators fnd meaning in the idea that they are part of a proto-scientifc effort that will, over time, challenge fundamental theories in biology and physics, and thereby establish itself as a respected scientifc feld. Many investigators also fnd spiritual meaning in the practice. Thirty of forty-fve interviewees (67%)1 report that they developed, expanded, or reinforced a spiritual worldview as a consequence of their participation. Some investigators gain spiritual enlightenment from the practice in the absence of any coherent religious beliefs, while others experience paranormal investigation as extension of their religious beliefs. Those who fnd spiritual meaning in paranormal investigation argue that this practice offers a direct avenue to spiritual truths, in that paranormal investigation empowers them to personally seek proof of the existence of the afterlife. In contrast to the notion that discovery and enlightenment constitute distinct spheres, eight of the forty-fve paranormal investigators in this study (18%) experience the practice as both scientifcally and spiritually meaningful. These individuals appreciate how the technological tools used by most teams enable investigators to “prove” the existence of spirits. They believe that this “proof” contributes both to scientifc understandings of the world and to the intrinsic human desire to know what lies beyond the veil of death. The fact that many paranormal investigators wish to position this practice as scientifcally and/ or spiritually meaningful should not be too surprising given the tremendous legitimizing power exerted by institutionalized science and religion. In fact, anyone attempting to assert claims about the “reality” of something would be foolish not to attempt to embed these claims in such hegemonic discourses. At the same time, paranormal investigators acknowledge that these institutions are unlikely to legitimate paranormal investigation or the existence of ghosts in their lifetimes, if ever. In the face of this challenge, paranormal investigators fnd meaning in other, more immediate worldly outcomes. Most notably, the vast majority of paranormal investigators— thirty-seven of the forty-fve people I interviewed (82%)—reframe this practice as a type of service profession or a form of “care work” (England 2005). Beyond questions of enlightenment and discovery, these people argue that paranormal investigation is socially valuable because it helps people (see also Hill 2017). In most cases, this manifests as a desire to ease the minds of living people who are experiencing frightening events that they believe to be manifestations of spiritual entities. Investigators who believe they can communicate with spirits also believe they can help the dead by passing messages to the living and “crossing over” spirits

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who are trapped between the physical and spiritual planes. While some investigators make such claims in absence of any additional assertions of the scientifc or spiritual value of paranormal investigation, most argue that it serves two or even three valuable personal and social functions. In the sections below, I present data showing how paranormal investigators make sense of the practice as a pioneering science, a spiritual practice, and a human service profession. Within each discrete category, I also present data that speaks to the complexity of investigators’ understandings of paranormal investigation as serving more than one of these functions. Overall, these data show how deeply meaningful participation in paranormal investigation is for team members.

Paranormal investigation as pioneering science Those investigators who position paranormal investigation as a pioneering science tend to use “scientifcal” language when explaining how the practice contributes to scientifc knowledge. Like Hill (2017) fnds in her content analysis of paranormal investigation teams’ websites, the investigators I speak to frequently use terms such as “energy,” “dimensions,” and “data” when describing paranormal investigation. As one of two sensitives (along with Kenneth) who say they fnd meaning in the scientifc promise of paranormal investigation, Kathleen explains that she enjoys: fnding evidence of something we don’t understand. Whether it’s energy that behaves in a strange way, or the interaction between the human mind and other dimensions, I don’t know. And what I love about it is I don’t know. It’s fun being at the forefront of actually trying to fgure this out and watching how the data has come together over the years (emphasis in original). Similarly, Matthew explains that his “goal in life” in his job at a research laboratory is “to make a discovery that is unknown and try to publish it.” He views his participation in paranormal investigations as an extension of his formal scientifc research and couches his explanation in scientifc discourse: As a scientist, you’re always trying to look for correlations. You’re trying to put in A and get B every time. So if you can fgure out the comings and goings of activity in some way, shape, or form, maybe you can start to measure parameters about when that activity is happening…. We’re looking at things that are leaning into our dimension for one reason or another, and by measuring these different parameters and the environment and trying to correlate them with paranormal events, we might be able to fgure out what’s going on. To buttress their claims to scientifc legitimacy, several other investigators make explicit connections to contemporary scientifc theories and discoveries.

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Sarah, for example, draws connections between news stories about the human brain and her beliefs about the existence of spirits. As she explains: The frst time I heard that the brain puts out electrical impulses, it occurred to me, “When somebody dies, couldn’t those impulses remain together?” That, to me, would create what we call a spirit. Investigators who present paranormal investigation as akin to established scientifc methods and theories embed the practice in a body of knowledge that is widely accepted as legitimate. Whether consciously or not, these investigators engage in “boundary-work” (Gieryn 1983) that rhetorically expands the boundaries of what constitutes “legitimate” science to include claims rooted in paranormal explanations. Interestingly, eight of the sixteen investigators who assert the scientifc legitimacy of paranormal investigation acknowledge shortcomings in their methods and theories. Rather than simply admitting that paranormal investigation does not strictly adhere to principles of falsifability and replicability, these investigators present a comparative argument in which the practice is either favorably compared to established sciences in the past or imagined as being legitimized in the future. For example, drawing comparisons to the discovery that Earth was spherical, Terri says: I’m sure when they frst fgured out that the Earth was round and not fat it was a similar process: they were told they were crazy, there’s no such thing, you don’t know what you’re talking about. And probably persecuted for their ideals, right?… So some people may never come to the realization that what we do is a legitimate science, and that’s fne. That’s just the way it is. Using a similar strategy, Phil connects paranormal investigation to atomic physics before presenting a claim that well-respected scientists also believe it is possible to communicate with the dead: A hundred years ago we couldn’t see atoms, you know? And now we can see ‘em. And if you really go back in the day and talk about either Albert Einstein or Thomas Edison, I mean there were two gentlemen who believed [in spirits]. They said, “Hey look, if at some point in time we can communicate with the dead, it’ll probably be through some electronic device.” But right now, human-wise, we haven’t fgured out how to do it (emphasis in original). Doug imagines a day in the future when paranormal investigators and scientists will work together, using the data collected by paranormal investigators over the years to come to scientifc conclusions about the nature of spirit phenomena:

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Some scientists talk about the things we do and say, “There may be something to it.” Maybe they look at it as “energy” and not as a ghost, but I think somewhere down the road we’re gonna come together on this and understand it a lot better…I mean, there’s lots of people all over the world that do this [paranormal investigation]. With all [the data] that we’re gathering, somebody somewhere several years down the road is gonna be able to sit there and say, “Orbs are this” and “EVPs come from here.” Like Doug, Jack imagines a collaborative effort (in this case, with computer scientists) that will lead to a breakthrough in scientifc understanding of ghosts. As with Terri and Phil, he also links this imagined progression of paranormal investigation toward scientifc legitimacy to past examples of scientifc theories that, over time, were proven correct: I frmly believe that in the next ten to twenty years, we’re going to crack the code on ghosts, on exactly what we are after death…I deal with logic and programming all day at work, so if I could create an algorithm to prove ghosts [exist] or create software that could detect fuctuations and tie it all together into a 3D projection of a mass moving through a room, I’d do it. The geeks are gonna be the ones that, in the end, fnd the right tool…. But right now, it’s pseudoscience—or it’s fringe, just like dark matter or superstring theory were fringe back in the day. Collectively, such statements frame paranormal investigation as a proto-science, a practice that is in the process of becoming a bona fde science but is not yet at the fnal stages of its development. By acknowledging and then contextualizing the practice’s weaknesses in relation to established scientifc methodology and theories, they attempt to undercut the popular criticism that paranormal investigation is merely a pseudoscience and will never achieve scientifc legitimacy. This reactive discursive strategy insulates the claims of paranormal investigators from outright rejection by moving the time horizon for the practice’s legitimation. Investigators project into the future, even as they also reach back to the past, in a strategy to connect paranormal investigation to credible science. While the protection of paranormal claims from damning criticism may be understood as an end in its own right, in the context of investigators’ sensing of the practice in relation to the meaning it provides in their lives, this strategy serves as a means to an end as well. To the degree that these investigators convince themselves of the scientifc merits of searching for evidence of ghosts, they are able to feel confdent that the time, energy, and money that they invest in these efforts are worthwhile. In turn, they can cast themselves as courageous explorers seeking truth on the boundaries of science and spirituality, and thereby formulate a valued self-identity as a pioneering scientist.

Paranormal investigation as spiritual practice Aside from any questions as to the scientifc merits of paranormal investigation, two-thirds of investigators say that the practice brings spiritual meaning

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to their lives. For these investigators, participation in investigations is not—or at least not only—an effort to establish scientifc grounds for the existence of ghosts. Rather, they experience paranormal investigation as a form of spiritual practice, in the sense that this activity enables them to feel “related to a divine, supernatural, or transcendent order of reality” and facilitates “awareness of a suprareality that goes beyond life as ordinarily experienced” (Wuthnow 2003:307). Research reveals contrasting pictures of the relationship of religion to paranormal beliefs. Some studies based on self-reported survey data, for example, show that paranormal beliefs are positively correlated with religious beliefs, particularly among those who infrequently attend church (Baker and Draper 2010; Glendinning 2006; McKinnon 2003; Mencken et al. 2008). From this perspective, belief in things such as ghosts should be generally compatible with beliefs rooted in institutionalized religions. On the other hand, other research argues that paranormal beliefs may serve as a substitute for conventional religious beliefs (Emmons and Sobal 1981; Hergovich et al. 2005). Among those who either never ascribed to or drifted away from established religion, beliefs in ghosts and other paranormal entities and abilities may function as a basis for an alternative spirituality. Particularly in regard to perceived spiritual experiences, conventional religion and paranormal investigation have a “bounded affnity” (Baker et al. 2016) with one another. They share an ontological position that spiritual beings exist, but only institutional religion has the “cultural authority” (Hufford 1995) to assert that its truth claims about spirits refect reality. Though ghost beliefs are, by defnition, marginalized as “paranormal,” the fact that they share with religion a basic assertion of the existence of spirits affords paranormal investigators some fexibility in how, or if, they combine these two sets of beliefs. Themes of compatibility and functional replacement are both apparent among the thirty investigators who express that paranormal investigation offers them spiritual benefts. Most commonly, these spiritual benefts manifest as an increased confdence in the existence of an afterlife. Twenty-three of the thirty investigators who report fnding spiritual meaning in investigating report that paranormal investigation helps them know that humans continue to exist in some form after death. Speaking about the meaning he derives from electronic voice phenomena (EVPs) and other data that he defnes as evidence of ghosts, Josh says: Whatever’s next, I don’t know; nobody knows, really. The only thing I can fathom is that after you die, your spirit is still alive in a different dimension. Like, the spirit would move on to a parallel dimension, and that’s where heaven and hell are. And for whatever reason, this person [a ghost] didn’t pass on to the next dimension. As a long-time spiritual “seeker” (Wuthnow 1998), an investigator named Liz had explored various religions and studied metaphysics before getting involved

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in paranormal investigation. What she appreciates about investigating is that it affords participants the opportunity to experience manifestations of the afterlife, not simply take the existence of the afterlife on faith alone. She fnds the practice reassuring because it seems to offer evidence that death will not be the end for her and her loved ones: I’m a person who just wants answers. And with the different spiritual paths I’ve studied, I’ve tried to fnd the answers because I can’t stand to not know. I’ve always been a believer [in the afterlife] but I want that concrete evidence. My goal is to see a full-bodied apparition; that would be the ultimate thing. I want to experience it for myself, just for my own confrmation that there’s something going on after this. I mean, I hate to think that it’s just birth, school, work, death. That just seems so empty to me. So I want to feel better about it [death]…. And a lot of it is just hoping that my mother is still around, ‘cause I lost her in 2006. I miss her and I wanna know that she’s doing okay and she’s not just gone…. So it’s kinda for my own comfort, but part of it is just giving myself comfort that the people I lose aren’t just non-existent. Similarly, Kaye explains, “I think my fear of wondering what’s going to come after [death] is part of the reason why I do this.” When I ask if paranormal investigating has affected her thinking about the afterlife, she responds: My experiences in this give me proof that there’s more to the human experience. You’re not just a blip on the screen and then gone. I think it gives evidence that there’s something more beyond this, that you don’t just pass away and that’s all there is. For these investigators and many others like them, paranormal investigation provides an opportunity to directly experience—and perhaps collect evidence of—life after death. By enabling such personal encounters with the otherworldly, paranormal investigation offers proof where other spiritual practices only offer promises. This desire for proof of the afterlife is present among sensitives and non-sensitives, and among those who ascribe to traditional religion as well as those who identify as “spiritual but not religious” or even atheist. However, how these individuals incorporate the paranormal into their spiritual worldviews varies depending upon the strength of their adherence to a particular set of religious beliefs. For those who remain committed to an established religious tradition, paranormal investigation can function to reinforce these views. Doug, for example, was raised Methodist and Baptist and currently identifes as non-denominational Christian. He explains that paranormal investigation: has not changed my view on the Bible and things like that, but it’s expanded my understanding of it. It’s just made it very much more real. Because you

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can read these stories in the Bible where people cast out demons or saw a vision or whatever. And with paranormal investigation, you kinda experience similar things in the real world. So it’s opened up a whole new area [of my beliefs] to explore and try to understand (emphasis in original). Echoing Doug’s perspective, a Southern Baptist investigator named Melissa reports: it’s not changed my beliefs: I still believe that God is over everything and he sent Jesus to die on the cross. That hasn’t changed. What did change was my understanding of what God’s talking about in the Bible…. It’s made me more willing to dig deeper in the scripture and see what he’s talking about with “testing the spirits” (emphasis in original). Heidi, who was raised Lutheran and still identifes as such, believes that God has enabled paranormal investigators to use technological tools to fnd evidence of ghosts: I don’t see a confict with being a paranormal investigator…I don’t know that we’re meant to know what happens after you die, but there’s equipment now available that we can somewhat get closer to understanding that. And I just think that if God truly didn’t want us to understand, He wouldn’t have ever let these pieces of equipment—you know, we wouldn’t have made that connection. Like Heidi, Phil still adheres to the religious tradition in which he had been raised, though in his case this is Catholicism. When I ask whether paranormal investigation has affected his religiosity, he states: It has actually grounded me religiously more. Because of the things I’ve seen and experienced and heard, I can say that I do believe there is life beyond our current existence here [on Earth]. What it is, I have no idea, but I do believe there is a higher power. I have to believe in something like that because of the things I’ve experienced [during paranormal investigations] (emphasis in original). Sally, the Catholic nun who leads a team, similarly reports that paranormal investigation “has really strengthened my faith, because now I know why it’s so important to pray for our brothers and sisters who have gone [passed away] before us.” Another Catholic investigator, Debra, asserts that: There is a higher power. To me, it’s God, it’s Jesus, because of my Catholic upbringing. And to me there’s no doubt in my mind. So when I go out and [investigate] scientifcally, and I’ve captured something that there is no possible way that it can be anything other than paranormal activity…I

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have my spiritual belief that I know there’s something more out there, and now I’ve got the validation to show you, Marc, because you can look at the video tape…. So it really becomes all one at that point. It [paranormal investigation] is just giving you that validation. These investigators conventionalize paranormal investigation. By taking unconventional paranormal beliefs (the belief in ghosts) and practices (the search for evidence of such entities) and recasting these as simply another way of understanding God’s universe and Biblical teachings, these investigators reconcile their paranormal and religious approaches to spiritual questions. In so doing, they minimize the differences between these two sets of beliefs and perceive them as compatible with one another (Baker and Bader 2014; Draper and Baker 2011; Goode 2012). Religious investigators are not always able to integrate their religious and paranormal beliefs without altering the basic tenets of each worldview. In fact, several investigators who self-identify as religious—most typically, as some form of Christian—re-evaluated their religious beliefs in light of perceived paranormal experiences. Kevin, who was raised Southern Baptist, reports that after participating in paranormal investigation for several years, he found himself questioning his earlier religious socialization: I’ve heard my entire life that when you die, you go one place or the other. You don’t get stuck in limbo. Then, you know, once you start investigating and you really, really know that you’ve seen a full-bodied apparition, it’s kind of one of those things, like, “How does that work?”…In all, it’s made me more open to other beliefs and practices…I’m a Christian; I mean, I do believe in God. But I guess you could say that I’ve become more spiritual from everything that I’ve seen, that I’ve done, that I’ve witnessed (emphasis in original). Dave, who was raised in both Baptist and Methodist churches and currently identifes as simply Christian, comments that as a result of participating in paranormal investigation: I’ve got a more open mind on things now. I’m not just “You gotta go to church and you gotta believe in God or you go to hell,” blah blah blah. It’s not like that anymore. Now I just believe there’s something else out there (emphasis in original). The attempt to fnd a balance between religious and paranormal beliefs is particularly diffcult for sensitive investigators. Sabrina, for example, believes that from an early age she has been able to receive messages from spirits and speak to them. This caused some confusion in her teenage years, when she could not reconcile the Episcopalian doctrines of her youth with her emerging mediumistic abilities. When she had children in her twenties, she rejoined a non-denominational

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Christian church but soon found that her abilities caused her to be ostracized by church leaders. This experience, in conjunction with what she witnesses during paranormal investigations, make her question the church’s teachings: I was always under the assumption that there was a higher power and that when people die they go either to heaven or hell. But knowing what I know now of the church’s beliefs and what I deal with in the paranormal feld, that doesn’t make complete sense to me anymore. It just doesn’t compute [laughs] for someone to say that everything I deal with on a daily basis is demonic. So that’s why I doubt all of the things that I thought I knew for years. Things that I thought were the truth don’t seem like they could be anymore. In direct contradiction to the hierarchical relationship between institutionalized religion and paranormal beliefs in the broader culture, people like Kevin, Dave, Sabrina, and others prioritize the legitimacy of paranormal experiences and measure religious beliefs in relation to these experiential truths. Finding that their religious beliefs do not entirely align with their paranormal experiences, they question and subsequently alter their religious beliefs rather than abandoning their paranormal beliefs. As they do so, these investigators move toward a “spiritual but not religious” (Fuller 2001) identity. Their adaptation or questioning of religious faith in light of paranormal experiences is a testament to the power of these experiences as a source of truth for those investigators who believe they have made contact with the other side. There are also quite a few investigators who are alienated from institutional religion but yet do not identify as atheists. For these people, paranormal investigation contributes to the development of a spiritual worldview centered on a sense that something may be out there beyond death. Allison, a sensitive who began to question her Catholic beliefs before joining a paranormal investigation team in college, presents this perspective when she states: I wasn’t strong in any sort of faith when I joined, at all. I was kind of following my own path. And investigating has strengthened not only my faith that God exists, but that what I sense—the ability to have a personal relationship [with a spirit]—is very much correct…. I didn’t go looking for God as I became an investigator, but as I have done more and more investigating it has become harder to deny the existence of God or some higher Creator. There’s defnitely something beyond this life, a consciousness that isn’t easily explained away (emphasis in original). Steven, who lost faith in God after his father died, also reports that paranormal investigation increases his confdence in the existence of an afterlife despite a lack of traditional religious beliefs: The more I get into the paranormal, the more spiritual I get. It kind of brought it full circle for me, because now I know there’s something after

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death. Before, I was hoping, putting my faith in something I didn’t know. And now through the research we’ve done and the experiences I’ve had, there’s no doubt in my mind that there’s something after death (emphasis in original). Like Allison, Fiona was raised Catholic but drifted from the church, trying out multiple Protestant denominations and metaphysical belief systems before fnding paranormal investigation. As she explains, “I don’t believe in heaven and hell in the Biblical sense…. From my experience as an investigator, I believe that we have energy that survives our vessel [body].” Rachel also rejected her Catholic upbringing, eventually becoming a practicing Wiccan. As someone who has already carved out her own spiritual path, she does not see paranormal investigation as incompatible with spiritual beliefs. In fact, Rachel argues that participation in investigations almost inevitably leads to heightened spirituality. As she notes: I never really ascribed to the whole Catholicism angels and demons thing, but when you’ve seen and heard things and had encounters with the spirits, it kinda gets hard to say, “That’s not real.” I’m not sure you can do this and not have some sort of belief in something (emphasis in original). For such investigators, these paranormal experiences are a functional alternative to established religious beliefs, as other research has noted (Emmons and Sobal 1981; Hergovich et al. 2005). Like religion, paranormal beliefs and perceived paranormal experiences assuage fears of death and provide a sense of cosmic order for these people. As Luhrmann (2012) reports in her study of evangelical Christians, a sense of directly experiencing the presence of a spiritual entity—perceived as God by evangelicals and disembodied human consciousnesses by paranormal investigators—increases beliefs in some kind of afterlife and higher power. Lastly, six investigators claim that participation in paranormal investigation has not changed their religious or spiritual worldviews. Among these investigators, there are two general trends. Two investigators who report that paranormal investigation had no effect upon their religious or spiritual beliefs describe the two worldviews in dichotomous, heart-versus-mind language. As a nondenominational Christian investigator named Jennifer states: I’ve always had faith, but I’ve also always been logical and analytical. So I’ve always recognized that my faith in God and Christ defes logic and reasoning, and I’m okay with that. With paranormal investigating, I just keep it separate. It’s neither confrmed or caused me to be more skeptical of my faith. An investigator named Suzanne came to paranormal investigation with a much more “spiritual but not religious” perspective than Jennifer, having rejected

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her fundamentalist Methodist upbringing. Nonetheless, she shares Jennifer’s ambivalence about what paranormal investigation has or has not proved to her personally. As she explains: I think I’ve always believed that there’s something after death, that the spirit lives on. Doing this kind of work hasn’t made me believe otherwise, and I also haven’t had enough proof yet to say, “Yes, investigation has led me to believe one hundred percent that the personality lives on, or the spirit or energy lives on.” The results of investigating are still kinda up in the air for me as to what they prove, but I still have that belief in my heart that life continues after death and that our experience on Earth is just a very small part of who we really are. Within this subgroup, there is a second, related trend. Several investigators report that paranormal investigation has not affected their religious or spiritual beliefs because they already frmly believed in the afterlife before getting involved. Norah, for example, was raised Catholic and is still very active in the church. She is a member of the team led by Sally, the Catholic nun, which also includes members who are skeptical of religion. From Norah’s perspective, paranormal investigation is not a replacement for faith in regard to questions of life after death. However, she recognizes that this is not the case for other teammates. Contrasting herself with Nancy, a non-believer on her team, Norah says: I think for those that don’t have faith—like Nancy, who’s been investigating longer than I have—I keep thinking to myself, “What are you looking for? Are you gonna have to wait for Casper the friendly ghost to be standing in front of you in order to believe?” Because for me, I believe. There’s no question (emphasis in original). Among the investigators who possess such strong faith, paranormal investigation has little, if any, effect upon their religious or spiritual beliefs. Unlike most other investigators, they need no further proof of the afterlife beyond that offered through their faith tradition. Overall, paranormal investigation functions as a spiritual practice for the majority of participants. Although some fnd that the practice reaffrms existing beliefs, others adapt or even develop spiritual beliefs as a result of investigation. For these thirty investigators, paranormal investigation is spiritually meaningful because it offers proof where other belief systems only provide faith-based assurances. As noted in sympathetic commentaries, the feld of parapsychology offers practitioners the hope of an “evidence-based spirituality” (Tart 2010) that uses scientifc tools and techniques to answer spiritual questions (see also Carlton 1987; Tart 2009). Like parapsychology, paranormal investigation can lead to spiritual experiences for participants and affrm the existence of life after

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death. To the degree that it facilitates a spiritual understanding of the world, paranormal investigation functions as a spiritual practice. Moreover, its position outside the strictures of institutional science or religion affords investigators great latitude in deciding what “proof” of ghosts actually means to them. This interpretive fexibility enables some investigators to support pre-existing religious or spiritual beliefs through participation, while others see paranormal investigation as a functional alternative to these belief systems.

Paranormal investigation as human service profession In addition to providing scientifc and spiritual meaning, paranormal investigators fnd the practice meaningful as a type of human service profession. This way of thinking about and describing the practice is present in the responses of thirty-seven of my forty-fve interviewees (82%), and is the most common way that both non-sensitives (twenty-two of twenty-eight, 79%) and sensitives (ffteen of seventeen, 88%) understand the personal and social value of the practice. This way of making sense of paranormal investigation is not widely reported in research on the topic, though Hill notes in her review of teams’ websites that these groups often describe themselves as “professionals” and “emphasize caring consideration for helping clients get through a diffcult and confusing time in their lives” (2017:86; emphasis in original). Among my interviewees, I found that “help” is envisioned as a multi-faceted concept that takes a more or less scientifc or sensitive orientation depending upon the idiocultural and personal predilections of investigators. Moreover, help is not simply reserved for clients; it is also occasionally offered to spirits as well. Both non-sensitive and sensitive investigators emphasize that they help clients by validating clients’ beliefs that their properties are haunted. For non-sensitive investigators, this validation comes in the form of personal experiences or other data that are reported to the client as evidence. Yvette, for example, says of her team, “We’re in this business to help people. That’s why we do what we do.” When I ask whether by “people” she means the living or the dead, she replies: Help the living. There’s some people, they think they’re going crazy because they keep seeing things or hearing things. So they want us to come in and give them some kind of proof that there is something happening. We may not be able to tell them, “Hey, that’s your deceased husband,” but we can get pretty close sometimes (emphasis in original). As an example, Yvette tells the story of a client who reported that objects in her home were moving without being touched. The client believed that this activity may have been her recently deceased father’s way of making his presence known. Yvette tells me that during an EVP session in the home, her fashlight lit up on its own immediately after she asked the father to give a sign of his presence. According to Yvette, “all you heard was her [the female client]

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going ‘Ahhhhhh’ [long exhale], ‘cause it was like, ‘Oh, it is Dad!’” (emphasis in original). Similarly, Doug explains: people call us because they have strange things happening in their house and they’re looking for help, they’re looking for answers. Many of ‘em want to know they’re not crazy; others just want to know it’s not dangerous…. Our group’s providing a service. A lot of churches will tell you, “Just pray about it,” but nobody from the church will come sit down with you and try to get evidence that you can show to people. That’s why I’m proud of what we do. Like Yvette, Doug illustrates his point with a story. He recalls a female client who claimed to have seen the apparition of a girl in a long white dress in one of the home’s bedrooms. During his team’s investigation, Doug took a photograph of this bedroom’s doorway and captured the image of a shadowy, human-shaped silhouette. He showed the client this image without drawing attention to the silhouette, but as soon as the client saw the photograph she exclaimed, “That’s her! That’s the little girl I saw!” Wrapping up his story, Doug concludes, “Clients like that because now they have evidence that backs up their story. They feel vindicated because they got something they can show their friends, or kids, or spouse and say, ‘See, I’m not crazy!’” (emphasis in original). Most sensitive investigators also believe that such “hard evidence” is important for validating property owners’ beliefs about a haunting. In addition, they present themselves as uniquely qualifed to teach clients how to establish boundaries or rules for the spirits. Fiona’s desire to empower clients by teaching them to set “ground rules,” as she calls them, results from her own experience with a male spirit who she refers to as a “stalker.” She believes this spirit is infatuated with her for some reason and follows her wherever she goes. She sought help from a local paranormal investigation team, but they were unable to remove the spirit from her home. They did, however, teach her how to prevent the spirit from becoming too intrusive in her life. She ended up joining this team in order to help others who were in a similar situation: To be a guidance to them is a big thing: I want to help people who are going through what I’m going through and teach them how to deal with an entity or attachment, to control it. But I’m big about collecting evidence too, because with my abilities—I’m an empath, a clairvoyant—I can feel things, but to go in and say, “Hey, this [spirit] is your dad. Don’t be afraid” is not as easy as presenting them with [a recording of] their dad’s voice. Once I got proof, now I can teach you how to deal with this [haunting]. If you don’t want him in your room, I’ll teach you how to keep him in another room. Stuff like that (emphasis in original).

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Likewise, Pattie feels a sense of “responsibility” in helping clients who have “been through hell and have nowhere else to go.” As a sensitive, one way she provides help to is by “validating their experiences and teaching them a couple of things, like to be strict with your ghosts, set boundaries, and keep your home as spiritually clean as possible.” In her opinion, such advice “give[s] them [the clients] power” and thus provides a service to people in need. Beyond simply validating clients’ experiences, several investigators also offer to help clients cleanse their properties of unwanted spirits. Non-sensitive investigators typically outsource such requests to a trusted third party who claims to be able to rid individuals or homes of spiritual energies. For example, when I ask Liz if her team ever attempts to cleanse homes, she replies: We’re really just there to collect evidence and give the client an idea of what we think or what we captured. We don’t advertise ourselves as being somebody who cleanses homes or anything like that; we usually outsource for that. I feel like there’s people [who are] better qualifed to do that kind of thing, so I’ll leave it to them. We sure do feel sympathy for trapped spirits, but usually we outsource if we run into a problem like that. Xavier’s team once contacted a reverend because they thought a client may have been possessed by a demon. At the time, Xavier was studying demonology because, as he explains it, “I thought it would be good for the team to have a demonologist because I want to do those things to help clients.” However, Xavier did not yet feel qualifed to perform a rite of exorcism, so the team outsourced this task. As he recalls: We actually had a reverend come up from the [major city] area to help one of our clients because we were of the belief that this client was possessed. That was one of the scariest things ever! The client would hear these voices in their head…and they’d be talking to themselves and wouldn’t be able to focus on us when we were talking to them…At frst, with my skepticism, I thought, “Hey, they could be playing us right now, or they could be schizophrenic.” But, you know, it’s very easy to tell when a client’s faking, and this client was extremely serious. And when the reverend came up, the client was saying things to the reverend that I was completely stunned by…. The client started crying and was in lots of pain and [experiencing bodily] contortions. And they said “Go F yourself” multiple times to the reverend…. He [the reverend] was speaking through the client to whatever was possessing her, and the name that the reverend got out of the client was…a name from what I had studied (emphasis in original). Offers to cleanse a property are more common among sensitives, who purportedly possess the ability to manipulate and remove spiritual energies. In one case, Raven and her team were called by a mother whose child was afraid to sleep at night because a “shadow entity,” as Raven calls it, was “swirling

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around in her bedroom.” Raven reports that upon entering the child’s bedroom, she found the likely source of the child’s problems: I tend to look for things that are already in the household that might awaken whatever [spiritual] power is lying in something that might be residing in the home. And when I took a minute to sort of examine the room, I noticed that the child had a rather large amethyst-cluster stone… [Fortunately] something such as an amethyst can be easily cleansed by bathing it in the home’s water or simply letting it bathe in the sun for several hours. And by cleansing that energy, you’re sort of turning the item’s switch on to help it protect you. Refecting on her efforts to cleanse properties, Sabrina says she believes cleansings offer only a temporary respite from spirit activity. As she explains, she conducts cleansings more for the psychological beneft of property owners than because she thinks they are an effective means of ridding a location of a haunting: I’ve seen a house go from almost pitch dark to like sunlight’s coming in because we did a cleansing. It really is the difference between night and day, temporarily. It’s something that has to be done on a regular basis, but we do it to help people and then we show them how to cleanse their own homes…. I use white sage throughout the house, [moving] counterclockwise and saying basically, “Out with the negative, in with the positive.” I’ve used salt, I’ve used holy water, I’ve had to call in priests,… and I even had a situation where I had to call in a Native American shaman because it was a Native American haunting situation and my regular prayer wasn’t going to work…. There are many different ways that you can help people. And honestly, in a lot of these situations where you’re cleansing a home, it’s just to put people’s minds at ease (emphasis in original). Whether undertaken by non-sensitives or sensitives, the impetus behind cleansings is a desire to help those experiencing a perceived haunting gain a sense of control over their properties. Underlying this impetus are a set of basic assumptions held by both sets of investigators; namely, that it is possible to control the behavior of spirits or to manipulate spiritual energies through a few simple ritualized interventions and efforts to communicate with the spirits. These assumptions are, in turn, built upon the ontological assumption that ghosts exist and are the reason for clients’ discomfort. While scientifcally oriented investigators share this underlying ontological assumption, much of their effort during investigations is directed toward debunking paranormal claims (as also noted in Chapter Three). They prize debunking not only as a sign of rationality but also as a way of helping their clients make sense of what seem to be paranormal events. As Greg explains:

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Our goal is to help people that are dealing with things to understand what’s going on. We get just as excited when we debunk something as when we fnd something that might be truly paranormal. If we can come up to somebody who says “I have a ghost” and say “No, you don’t have a ghost. This is what’s going on in your home, so you don’t have to be afraid anymore,” that’s great (emphasis in original). For example, Kelly tells me of a time when her team was called to a home where a little girl was scared to sleep in her bedroom. During the investigation, the team found a source of high levels of electromagnetic feld (EMF) that likely caused the girl’s fear, and advised the family to fx this electrical issue: We just did a case where a child, for three years, would not sleep in her bedroom. She would have nightmares, crying, headaches. She even had crosses all over the room, and she was nine years old. We went into the bedroom, and it was a terrible feeling in that room…. It was an old house, so we’re looking everywhere for old light sockets and stuff. I told one of my investigators to open the closet and there was a power box in there that was so ancient it had this black stuff all over it. And the EMF was off the charts! So I told the client, “You have a huge electrical problem in your child’s bedroom, and you need to get it checked out.”…Well, she called me back and thanked me so much! The electrician came out and wired in a new box, and the little girl started sleeping through the night. It makes you feel really good when stuff like that happens, because you know you helped that little girl. And it had nothing to do with ghosts and everything to do with simple scientifc methods. Although attending to such natural explanations may threaten their underlying belief in ghosts, investigators who focus on debunking also note that their ability to fnd plausible explanations for many paranormal claims does not mean that all claims can be debunked. Jennifer, for example, points out that debunking is effective most of the time, but on rare occasions a paranormal explanation seems more appropriate: We get called into people’s houses because they are really scared and they really think that something’s going on…. I’m a very analytical and logical person, and I’ve been able to fnd plausible explanations for paranormal activity. Now, I’m not saying that absence of evidence is evidence of absence. It’s just that if there’s a more plausible explanation for something—say, like a CO2 leak or a power box [emitting high EMF]—then more likely than not I can rule out a paranormal explanation. At the same time, I’ve had instances that defy all logic and reason, and that’s why I cannot rule out the possibility of actual paranormal experiences (emphasis in original).

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Thus, scientifc paranormal investigators fnd that debunking benefts clients by assuaging their concerns even as these efforts also help investigators distinguish false positives from potentially genuine paranormal evidence. Debunking enables scientifc investigators to improve clients’ lives while also allowing them to dramaturgically perform a rational, skeptical version of paranormal investigation. In contrast to the scientifc investigators who focus only on helping the living, sensitive investigators see their care work as extending to the deceased. This is not to say that non-sensitive investigators have no interest in helping the dead; in fact, several state that they want to help these spirits but do not feel as though they possess the requisite skills to do so. For example, an investigator named Suzanne, who is a social worker by profession, comments that, “it seems like it would be sad to be stuck here. So…I would like to be in a position to help them move on. To go in like [a] social worker to ghosts! [laughs] But I’ve not had that opportunity.” Sensitives, on the other hand, believe that their extrasensory abilities enable them to directly assist these entities. Among those I interview, two themes emerge. First, sensitive investigators claim that they are able to help spirits pass messages to loved ones, thereby helping the spirit complete an earthly task and freeing the entity to cross over to the spiritual plane. Sabrina recalls one case in which the daughter of a deceased woman called Sabrina’s team because she thought her mother was haunting the home they had shared: When I get there,I have that one-on-one conversation with the spirit and ask them,“Why are you here? Is there a message you need to get to someone?” Sometimes it’s as simple as me giving a message to a loved one and then the spirit says,“I’m ready [to cross over].”…I had an older lady who didn’t want to pass on, and her daughter was telling me,“She’s here all the time, standing by the closet.” So I started talking to her [the female spirit] and she said,“The reason I won’t leave is because I’ve tried and tried to get my daughter to look under this box in the closet.” So I told the daughter,“There’s something under the box in the closet.”Well, under that box was a trap door that was probably three feet wide and three feet deep. I opened it up, and under there that lady had all kinds of jewelry and stocks and bonds! [laughs]…And almost immediately after that, she [the female spirit] said, “That’s all I needed. I’m going.”And this is after bothering her daughter constantly for eight or nine months. But her daughter just didn’t get the clue. Secondly, sensitive investigators cross spirits over upon the spirits’ request or if a client requests the removal of the spirits. Kenneth describes helping a spirit cross over as a form of compassionate assistance to another (albeit disembodied) human being: If a ghost makes contact with me, I address the ghost directly and I say, “I know you’re sad and you’re lonely and you’re trapped here.” You connect

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with their energy and then you start pumping them full of love and compassion. You reach out with your heart and say, “I love you! Can’t you remember what it’s like to be full of love and peace and adventure?” And it’s just like smiling at the lady behind the counter: one smile and a kind word will shake off a day’s worth of torment. If you can connect with them, you feed them that energy and then you say, “Follow it. Go, go! You don’t want this anymore.” And it’s really that simple to cross over spirits. They’re just humans that are trapped. Rachel tells of a case where her team decided to cross over a husband and wife whose spirits remained in an old Victorian home that they had lived in for quite some time. Although the original intent of the investigation was not to cross over these spirits, Rachel and another sensitive on the team both felt as though the spirits wished to do so. As she recounts: Throughout the night, the spirits became more active and open with us, so we fnally decided to say, “This is their [the clients’] home now. You’re not supposed to be here anymore.” And you could feel this overwhelming sense of sadness in the room. I was almost in tears, and the only thing that popped into my head was, “I wanna go.” And the other sensitive said the same thing; she said, “I think they want to leave. This is the time; it’s okay now.” So it wasn’t like we evicted them or something; the spirits wanted to [cross over]…. So we lit a white candle and sage, and said a Native American blessing since it [the location] was in more of a Native American area. And we envisioned a white light coming down on them and said, “This is the light. You have to go to the light.” And we talked about their relatives and people who would be waiting for them, and said, you know, Mother Earth and Father Sky would welcome them. I’d say the candle burned about halfway down, and then it was like the whole room just felt lighter. You could feel it, this sense of peace and everything was quiet. It was like, “They’re gone. They’re gone” (emphasis in original). Both Kenneth and Rachel frame their efforts as a service they are able to provide to the deceased using their extrasensory abilities. So too does Sabrina, who passed a message between the spiritual and physical planes. These sensitive investigators present themselves as using their gifts to humbly assist spirits in need. Because they see spirits as simply humans without bodies, they express deep sympathy and concern for these entities, and feel it is their responsibility to help these spirits in ways that non-sensitive investigators cannot. By highlighting their unique capacities to offer assistance to the dead as well as the living, sensitives assert that their approach to paranormal investigation has intrinsic value as a form of human service. This strategy pushes back against the subcultural emphasis on scientifc methods of investigation by positioning sensitives as uniquely capable of providing assistance to spirits.

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Theoretical contributions Using the strategies described above, paranormal investigators shift the discursive ground upon which their practice is to be judged. Rather than trying to fght a battle for legitimacy within the realms of institutionalized science and religion, they argue that paranormal investigation is socially valuable as a form of human service. Presented in this light, they imply that the practice should be evaluated in relation to the practical benefts it offers to the living and even to the dead. Although scientifc and sensitive investigators both frame the practice in this way, they highlight distinct ways that paranormal investigation provides a service. Even as they argue for a third path to legitimacy—one unencumbered by the baggage of dual marginalization—these two groups within the subculture still make competing claims that paranormal investigation is helpful precisely because it is “really” scientifc or grounded in “authentic” extrasensory abilities. In short, accounts that present paranormal investigation as a form of human service profession allow investigators to hedge against imagined accusations that they are fools or fraudsters while also serving as discursive “sign-vehicles” (Goffman 1959) through which they can reassert the legitimacy of their particular investigative approach. Collectively, the three themes described in this chapter help investigators make sense of the practice of paranormal investigation by linking it to legitimized (and legitimizing) institutions or to a socially valued professional area. Attempts to frame paranormal investigation as a proto-scientifc feld or as a spiritual practice associate the practice with institutional science and religion, respectively. To the extent that paranormal investigation can be effectively positioned as an extension of scientifc or religious practices, it can beneft from the halo effect of these institutions’ legitimacy. To the degree that it is continually rejected by these institutions, positioning the practice as a form of human service profession provides it a safe harbor from the reputational damage it may incur from continued marginalization by science and religion. By presenting as intrinsically valuable to society because of the psychological benefts it offers to clients, this latter strategy brackets off questions about its scientifc or spiritual signifcance and focuses attention on its practical usefulness for those who seek assistance. Together, these three sense making strategies recast paranormal investigation in a positive light for those outside of the subculture while providing participants the ability to fnd personal meaning in the practice.

Note 1 Reported percentages add up to more than 100% because these categories are not mutually exclusive. In fact, many paranormal investigators reported two or more of these ways of making sense of the practice.

References Bader, Christopher D., Joseph O. Baker, and F. Carson Mencken 2017. Paranormal America: Ghost Encounters, UFO Sightings, Bigfoot Hunts, and Other Curiosities in Religion and Culture. 2nd ed. New York: New York University Press.

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Baker, Joseph O. and Christopher D. Bader. 2014. “A Social Anthropology of Ghosts in Twenty-First-Century America.” Social Compass 61(4):569–93. Baker, Joseph O., Christopher Bader, and F. Carson Mencken. 2016. “A Bounded Affnity Theory of Religion and the Paranormal.” Sociology of Religion 77(4):334–58. Baker, Joseph O. and Scott Draper. 2010. “Diverse Supernatural Portfolios: Certitude, Exclusivity, and the Curvilinear Relationship between Religiosity and Paranormal Beliefs.” Journal for the Scientifc Study of Religion 49(3):413–24. Carlton, Eric. 1987. “Parapsychology as a Religious Surrogate.” Journal of the Society for Psychical Research 54(807):130–38. Draper, Scott and Joseph O. Baker. 2011. “Angelic Belief as American Folk Religion.” Sociological Forum 26(3):623–43. Emmons, Charles F. and Jeff Sobal. 1981. “Paranormal Beliefs: Functional Alternatives to Mainstream Religion?” Review of Religious Research 22(4):301–12. England, Paula. 2005. “Emerging Theories of Care Work.” Annual Review of Sociology 31(1):381–99. Fuller, Robert C. 2001. Spiritual but Not Religious: Understanding Unchurched America. New York: Oxford University Press. Gieryn, Thomas F. 1983. “Boundary-Work and the Demarcation of Science from NonScience: Strains and Interests in Professional Ideologies of Scientists.” American Sociological Review 48(6):781–95. Glendinning, Tony. 2006. “Religious Involvement, Conventional Christian, and Unconventional Nonmaterialist Beliefs.” Journal for the Scientifc Study of Religion 45(4):585–95. Goffman, Erving. 1959. The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. New York: Anchor Books. Goode, Erich 2012. The Paranormal: Who Believes, Why They Believe, and Why It Matters. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books. Hergovich, Andreas, Reinhard Schott, and Martin Arendasy. 2005. “Paranormal Belief and Religiosity.” The Journal of Parapsychology 69(2):293–303. Hufford, David J. 1995. “Beings without Bodies: An Experience-Centered Theory of the Belief in Spirits.” Pp. 11–45. In: Out of the Ordinary: Folklore and the Supernatural, edited by B. Walker. Logan, UT: Utah State University Press. Hill, Sharon A. 2017. Scientifcal Americans: The Culture of Amateur Paranormal Researchers. Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company, Inc. Luhrmann, T. M. 2012. When God Talks Back: Understanding the American Evangelical Relationship with God. New York: Vintage Books. McKinnon, Andrew M. 2003. “The Religious, the Paranormal, and Church Attendance: A Response to Orenstein.” Journal for the Scientifc Study of Religion 42(2):299–303. Mencken, F. Carson, Christopher D. Bader, and Rodney Stark. 2008. “Conventional Christian Beliefs and Experimentation with the Paranormal.” Review of Religious Research 50(2):194–205. Tart, Charles T. 2009. The End of Materialism: How Evidence of the Paranormal Is Bringing Science and Spirit Together. Oakland, CA: Noetic Books. ––––––. 2010. “Toward Evidence-Based Spirituality.” The Journal of Parapsychology 74(1):31–60. Wuthnow, Robert 1998. After Heaven: Spirituality in America Since the 1950s. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. ––––––. 2003. “Spirituality and Spiritual Practice.” Pp. 306–20. In: The Blackwell Companion to Sociology of Religion, edited by R. K. Fenn. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing.

The dead as social objects and actors

The preceding chapters have effectively laid out the argument of this book and shown how, to refer back to the opening sentence, ghosts are a social accomplishment. Rather than revisiting these arguments in summary form, I would like to turn to a brief discussion of what I believe to be the most signifcant contributions of my research to symbolic interactionist theorizing and to the sociological understanding of paranormal beliefs and practices more generally. Sensing Spirits, I argue, makes contributions in six distinct areas. First, this analysis more clearly distinguishes the person (and personhood) from the self. As clarifed in Chapter Four, I see the social object of the “person” and the status of “personhood” as outcomes of social processes whereby these are produced, applied, maintained, denied, or removed. The self, as theorized by Mead ([1934]1962) and those who have built upon his work, can become an object to itself (the “me”), but it is not only an object because the “I” is engaged in moment-by-moment actions within the social world. Furthermore, as developed by Stryker (1980) and other structural symbolic interactionists, the self contains within it a multiplicity of identities corresponding to the performance of social roles. The experience of selfhood, from this perspective, involves refecting upon the relative salience of these identities to one’s sense of self. Both of these approaches to the concept of the self presume that an ability to think refexively about oneself as a self is requisite for the possession of selfhood. Indeed, as sociologists who study human-animal relationships argue, it is precisely this capacity for self-refection that is at the core of animal selfhood (Alger and Alger 1997; Irvine 2004; Sanders 1993, 2003, 2007). My work is closer to that of Bogdan and Taylor (1989) and Gubrium (1986), who show how selfhood is imputed to the severely disabled or those with dementia when these people are seemingly incapable of the kinds of selfawareness and agency normally expected of individuals who possess selves. I also draw inspiration from Cahill’s (1998) call for a “sociology of the person,” in which he theorizes a “person production process” whereby personhood status is socially accomplished and applied to “socially defned, publicly visible, embodied being[s]” (135).

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The phases and modes of empersoning introduced in Chapter Four advance the sociology of the person by providing a conceptual framework for understanding how personhood is produced in a small group context. It also reveals that the types of persons who result from this process are products of interpretive work that is infuenced by cultural representations, place-based accounts, and idiocultural dynamics. The analysis presented here suggests that because personhood is a socially defned status that does not require that the object being empersoned possesses a self-refexive capacity, embodiment is not required for personhood to be granted. Moreover, building upon Vannini’s (2008) insights about the attribution of personhood to a sunken ship, the empersoning of ghosts shows that non-living objects can be defned as persons even if they are no longer physically present or, indeed, may never have physically existed (in the case of empersoning folkloric ghosts). The dead can achieve personhood status just as well as the living, as long as one or more individuals desire to imbue that entity with personhood and engage in interpretive processes that socially construct such a status. Second, beyond their status as social objects, I also posit that the dead are social actors and, as such, can be participants in the social construction of meaning. While I do not stake a claim here as to the actual existence of ghosts, my position that ghosts can be social actors is rooted in a foundational principle of symbolic interaction: the idea that the meaning of objects arises out of our attitudes (in the Meadian sense) toward those objects and the consequent actions we take toward them. From this perspective, objects can be social actors if they infuence (i.e., act upon) the perceptions and actions of those who interact with them. Owens (2007), for example, argues that “nonbiologic” objects, such as computers, may be considered social actors to the degree that people “do mind” for them. Similarly, Cerulo (2011:775) notes that non-humans, including the dead, should be conceptualized as “fully participating agents of action.” Invoking actor-network theory, Bialecki (2014) argues that the God with which charismatic Christians, such as in Luhrmann’s (2012) study, believe themselves to be communicating is a social actor in the lives of these believers. From this perspective, social objects are actors: individuals act on the basis of their perceptions of these objects, and thus the objects themselves are agents in a network of socially constructed meaning. I advance this line of argument and claim that ghosts should be treated as social actors. People who believe in ghosts also believe that these entities are capable of meaningful interaction with the living and with the physical world. Regardless of whether this is actually possible, the belief that it is occurring shapes the thoughts, feelings, and actions of the living. Ghosts can be social actors even if they do not exist because it is the perception of agency and co-presence that makes interactions meaningful, as Waskul’s (2003) work on cybersex and Zhao’s (Zhao 2003; Zhao and Elesh 2008) examination of online communication makes clear. Third, my research contributes to scholarship on the construction of narratives as a sense making practice. Gubrium and Holstein’s work (2009) and

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that of other sociologists who are explicitly or implicitly informed by a symbolic interactionist perspective (Loseke 2013; Maines 1993; Polletta et al. 2011; Smith 1978) orient us toward narrative as a social process (storytelling) and not simply as a text for analysis. Moreover, this body of work shows how narratives are not only produced through social action but also act back upon the social world, shaping the perceptions and actions of those who produced the narratives and those who are the audience for these accounts. Smith’s (1978) work, in particular, reveals how accounts are produced through iterative retellings in which certain elements are eliminated from the story while others are defned as “facts.” As presented in Chapter Five, the fve-phase narrative development model offers a structured approach to the analysis of what may be called the “lifecycle” of a narrative: how it emerges, is negotiated and contested, and slowly refned until it crystallizes into the defnitive account of what “really” happened. This model is applied here to the collaborative production of accounts of a haunting, but it may be fruitfully applied to any context in which people make sense of their experiences by embedding them in a narrative structure that emerges through interpretive interactions. In this regard, the narrative development model is frmly rooted in symbolic interactionist conceptualizations of narrative as both a social process and product that frames individuals’ perceptions of reality. Fourth, this book deepens our understanding of the role that idiocultures (Fine 1979) play in shaping the interpretations and actions of their members. While Fine’s concept has been elaborated and applied to various small group contexts over the forty-plus years since it was introduced, the internal power dynamics of idiocultures have been undertheorized. This is especially the case in regard to “knowledge regimes” (Fine 2010:362). This idea appears only once in Fine’s 2010 article and is not defned or elaborated upon. However, it is immanently useful for conceptualizing the relationship between knowledge and power in small groups. First, the emphasis on “knowledge” orients us to idiocultures as epistemic units that shape members’ perceptions of what is possible or what is real. Secondly, the term “regime” highlights how these truth claims emerge in the context of a group that is infuenced by internal status hierarchies. As shown in Chapter Five, idiocultural status may be gained or lost depending upon whether the forms of knowledge that one defnes as legitimate reinforce the idioculture’s epistemology. On the other hand, high status affords members some leeway in asserting knowledge claims that do not align with this epistemology. In short, knowledge and power are intertwined and mutually reinforcing components of the idiocultural status system. A ffth contribution is the application of Vannini et al.’s (2012) concept of “somatic work” to the processes by which paranormal investigators literally and fguratively sense spirits. Broadly speaking, the sociology of the senses continues to be an underdeveloped area within symbolic interactionism despite the work of Vannini, Waskul, Gottschalk, and others to draw attention to how somatic experiences are interactively produced, maintained, and redefned.

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Currently, the body of knowledge related to somatic work is based on analyses of living humans’ interactions with one another or with physical objects (Vannini et al. 2010a, 2010b; Waskul and Vannini 2008). My work takes this concept one step further to show how somatic work also occurs in perceived interactions with disembodied humans, i.e., ghosts. As described in Chapter Three, paranormal investigators engage in somatic work to externalize sensations that they think may result from contact with a spirit. Through this externalization, they make these sensations available for interactive negotiations of their meaning. They then produce knowledge claims about the presence of spirits based on the shared meanings they attach to these sensory experiences. These processes are similar to those described in Vannini, Waskul, and Gottschalk (2012) and elsewhere, but paranormal investigators’ somatic work produces sensory “evidence” (as defned by the investigators themselves) of direct physical contact with a spiritual entity. Expanding upon the concept of somatic work, I suggest two other forms of “work”— discernment work and techno-empiricist work—through which investigators produce paranormal “evidence” based on extrasensory and technological knowledge claims, respectively. These concepts build upon Woofftt’s (2006) analysis of the discourse of psychics and mediums as well as classic studies of the social construction of scientifc knowledge (Gilbert and Mulkay 1984; Latour and Woolgar 1986). This book deepens sociological understanding of “the paranormal” as a socially constructed category. As explained in the Introduction, “the paranormal” is a residual category encompassing knowledge claims that are rejected by both institutionalized science and religion. As individuals functioning within this interstitial discursive realm, paranormal investigators therefore develop two basic “boundary-work” (Gieryn 1983) strategies in an attempt to legitimize paranormal investigation. First, investigators attempt to expand the boundaries of the “feld” (as they often refer to it) such that they overlap with the discourses of science and religion. This strategy is refected, on the one hand, by investigators’ uses of “scientifcal” (Hill 2017) language and myriad technologies, and their positioning of paranormal investigation as a pioneering scientifc endeavor. On the other hand, the incorporation of sensitives’ extrasensory perceptions and accompanying claims that paranormal investigation enables direct contact with the spirit world frame it as a spiritual practice (see, for example, Chapter Six). The second strategy—refected most directly in the “identity work” (Snow and Anderson 1987) examined in Chapter Two and the assertion that paranormal investigation is a human service profession in Chapter Six—is to defne the practice as personally and socially valuable despite its dually marginalized position. This strategy avoids appeals to scientifc and spiritual legitimacy, and attempts to protect paranormal investigation from delegitimation by asserting its unique ability to help both the living and the dead. With the partial exception of Hill (2017), research on paranormal investigation almost entirely omits this form of identity work. This is particularly surprising given that this was

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the most common way that investigators positioned the practice as inherently benefcial to themselves and society as a whole. My work, therefore, begins to address a lacuna in sociological knowledge of paranormal investigation. Finally, this book addresses the relationship between paranormal beliefs and practices. Building upon Hufford’s (1982) work on the Old Hag/sleep paralysis phenomenon, Chapter One shows that initial belief in ghosts is traceable to two basic sources, what I refer to as experiential triggers and cultural triggers. Experiential triggers involve direct sensory or extrasensory engagement with what an individual believes to be some kind of spiritual entity. These are powerful events in the lives of those who go through them, especially if they occur early in life. Cultural triggers include stories about ghosts that individuals are exposed to within their families and the dominant culture. These triggers stimulate interest among people who report no personal paranormal experiences, and reaffrm the paranormal beliefs of people who believe they have had such experiences. My analysis shows that investigators’ beliefs about ghosts were largely nurtured in the primary socialization context of their families. Three-quarters of investigators were raised in households with at least one parent or guardian who, at the very least, permitted them to pursue their interest in ghosts. In this regard, the current research expands upon work examining the intergenerational transmission of religious beliefs (Bengtson et al. 2009; Hunsberger and Brown 1984; Kelley and De Graaf 1997; Myers 1996) by showing how similar processes also contribute to the intergenerational transmission of paranormal beliefs. At the same time, this book contributes to sociological research on the relationship between paranormal beliefs and religious beliefs (Baker and Draper 2010; McKinnon 2003; Mencken et al. 2009; Orenstein 2002). Paranormal investigators exhibit patterns that reinforce both the compatibility and functional alternative hypotheses: some fnd ways to integrate paranormal and religious or spiritual beliefs, while others turn to paranormal beliefs (and ultimately paranormal investigation) as a source of spiritual meaning in the absence of religious beliefs. Lastly, those who were raised in very religious homes develop strategies for separating their paranormal beliefs (and, in some cases, extricating themselves) from the family environments that regard ghosts as demons in disguise. No work of scholarship is perfect, and certainly this book is no exception. Future research could further examine the underlying causes of the demographic trends I observed in my feldwork and interviews; namely, that paranormal investigation is a largely White, middle-class activity in which men’s opinions tend to be treated as more valid. Likewise, scholars may wish to explore online or offine communities of paranormal investigators to determine what roles these play in the development and maintenance of paranormal beliefs. Others may identify the emotion management strategies that paranormal investigators use to control their emotional expressions during investigations. Similarly, there is great potential in examining investigators’ identity

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work in interactions with clients as well as the stigma management strategies they may employ while engaging with the public. Despite these shortcomings (and others), I hope that this book inspires readers to explore the margins of our social world with a critical eye toward how meaning is constructed by those you fnd on the fringes.

References Alger, Janet M. and Steven F. Alger. 1997. “Beyond Mead: Symbolic Interaction between Humans and Felines.” Society & Animals 5(1):65–81. Baker, Joseph O. and Scott Draper. 2010. “Diverse Supernatural Portfolios: Certitude, Exclusivity, and the Curvilinear Relationship between Religiosity and Paranormal Beliefs.” Journal for the Scientifc Study of Religion 49(3):413–24. Bengtson, Vern L., Casey E. Copen, Norella M. Putney, and Merril Silverstein. 2009. “A Longitudinal Study of the Intergenerational Transmission of Religion.” International Sociology 24(3):325–45. Bialecki, Jon. 2014. “Does God Exist in Methodological Atheism?: On Tanya Luhrmann’s When God Talks Back and Bruno Latour.” Anthropology of Consciousness 25(1):32–52. Bogdan, Robert and Steven J. Taylor. 1989. “Relationships with Severely Disabled People: The Social Construction of Humanness.” Social Problems 36(2):135–48. Cahill, Spencer E. 1998. “Toward a Sociology of the Person.” Sociological Theory 16(2):131–48. Cerulo, Karen A. 2011. “Social Interaction: Do Non-Humans Count?” Sociology Compass 5(9):775–91. Fine, Gary Alan. 1979. “Small Groups and Culture Creation: The Idioculture of Little League Baseball Teams.” American Sociological Review 44(5):733–45. ––––––. 2010. “The Sociology of the Local: Action and Its Publics.” Sociological Theory 28(4):355–76. Gieryn, Thomas F. 1983. “Boundary-Work and the Demarcation of Science from NonScience: Strains and Interests in Professional Ideologies of Scientists.” American Sociological Review 48(6):781–95. Gilbert, G. Nigel and Michael Mulkay. 1984. Opening Pandora’s Box: A Sociological Analysis of Scientists’ Discourse. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Gubrium, Jaber F. 1986. “The Social Preservation of Mind: The Alzheimer’s Disease Experience.” Symbolic Interaction 9(1):37–51. Gubrium, Jaber F. and James A. Holstein. 2009. Analyzing Narrative Reality. Los Angeles, CA: Sage. Hill, Sharon A. 2017. Scientifcal Americans: The Culture of Amateur Paranormal Researchers. Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company, Inc. Hufford, David J. 1982. The Terror That Comes in the Night: An Experience-Centered Study of Supernatural Assault Traditions. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press. Hunsberger, Bruce and L. B. Brown. 1984. “Religious Socialization, Apostasy, and the Impact of Family Background.” Journal for the Scientifc Study of Religion 23(3):239–51. Irvine, Leslie. 2004. “A Model of Animal Selfhood: Expanding Interactionist Possibilities.” Symbolic Interaction 27(1):3–21. Kelley, Jonathan and Nan Dirk De Graaf. 1997. “National Context, Parental Socialization, and Religious Belief: Results from 15 Nations.” American Sociological Review 62(4):639–59.

168 The dead as social objects and actors Latour, Bruno and Steve Woolgar. 1986. Laboratory Life: The Construction of Scientifc Facts. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Loseke, Donileen R. 2013. “Keynote Address: Empirically Exploring Narrative Productions of Meaning in Public Life.” Qualitative Sociology Review 9(3):12–30. Luhrmann, Tanya M. 2012. When God Talks Back: Understanding the American Evangelical Relationship with God. New York: Vintage Books. Maines, David R. 1993. “Narrative’s Moment and Sociology’s Phenomena: Toward a Narrative Sociology.” The Sociological Quarterly 34(1):17–38. McKinnon, Andrew M. 2003. “The Religious, the Paranormal, and Church Attendance: A Response to Orenstein.” Journal for the Scientifc Study of Religion 42(2):299–303. Mead, George Herbert. [1934] 1962. Mind, Self, and Society from the Standpoint of a Social Behaviorist, edited by C.W. Morris. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Mencken, F. Carson, Christopher D. Bader, and Ye Jung Kim. 2009. “Round Trip to Hell in a Flying Saucer: The Relationship between Conventional Christian and Paranormal Beliefs in the United States.” Sociology of Religion 70(1):65–85. Myers, Scott M. 1996. “An Interactive Model of Religiosity Inheritance: The Importance of Family Context.” American Sociological Review 61(5):858–66. Orenstein, Alan. 2002. “Religion and Paranormal Belief.” Journal for the Scientifc Study of Religion 41(2):301–11. Owens, Erica. 2007. “Nonbiologic Objects as Actors.” Symbolic Interaction 30(4):567–84. Polletta, Francesca, Pang Ching Bobby Chen, Beth Gharrity Gardner, and Alice Motes. 2011. “The Sociology of Storytelling.” Annual Review of Sociology 37(1):109–30. Sanders, Clinton R. 1993. “Understanding Dogs: Caretakers’ Attributions of Mindedness in Canine-Human Relationships.” Journal of Contemporary Ethnography 22(2):205–26. ––––––. 2003. “Actions Speak Louder Than Words: Close Relationships between Humans and Nonhuman Animals.” Symbolic Interaction 26(3):405–26. ––––––. 2007. “Mind, Self, and Human-Animal Joint Action.” Sociological Focus 40(3):320–36. Smith, Dorothy E. 1978. “‘K is Mentally Ill’: The Anatomy of a Factual Account.” Sociology 12(1):23–53. Snow, David A. and Leon Anderson. 1987. “Identity Work among the Homeless: The Verbal Construction and Avowal of Personal Identities.” American Journal of Sociology 92(6):1336–71. Stryker, Sheldon. 1980. Symbolic Interactionism: A Social Structural Version. Menlo Park, CA: The Benjamin/Cummings Publishing Company. Vannini, Phillip. 2008. “A Queen’s Drowning: Material Culture, Drama, and the Performance of a Technological Accident.” Symbolic Interaction 31(2):155–82. Vannini, Phillip, Guppy Ahluwalia-Lopez, Dennis Waskul, and Simon Gottschalk. 2010a. “Performing Taste at Wine Festivals: A Somatic Layered Account of Material Culture.” Qualitative Inquiry 16(5):378–96. Vannini, Phillip, Dennis Waskul, Simon Gottschalk, and Carol Rambo. 2010b. “Sound Acts: Elocution, Somatic Work, and the Performance of Sonic Alignment.” Journal of Contemporary Ethnography 39(3):328–53. Vannini, Phillip, Dennis Waskul, and Simon Gottschalk. 2012. The Senses in Self, Society, and Culture: A Sociology of the Senses. New York: Routledge. Waskul, Dennis D. 2003. Self-Games and Body-Play: Personhood in Online Chat and Cybersex. New York: Peter Lang. Waskul, Dennis D. and Phillip Vannini. 2008. “Smell, Odor, and Somatic Work: SenseMaking and Sensory Management.” Social Psychology Quarterly 71(1):53–71.

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Woofftt, Robin. 2006. The Language of Mediums and Psychics: The Social Organization of Everyday Miracles. London: Ashgate. Zhao, Shanyang. 2003. “Toward a Taxonomy of Copresence.” Presence: Teleoperators & Virtual Environments 12(5):445–55. Zhao, Shanyang and David Elesh. 2008. “Copresence as ‘Being With.’.” Information, Communication & Society 11(4):565–83.

Methodological appendix

My path to the topic of paranormal investigation is similar in many ways to the stories shared by the paranormal investigators I met while conducting this research. I did not have any paranormal experiences growing up and do not believe that I possess extrasensory abilities. I grew up in a household where religious beliefs were only vaguely present and the paranormal entered our lives through television shows like Unsolved Mysteries and movies such as Ghostbusters. Unlike many of the paranormal investigators I spoke to, my interest in ghosts never led to experimentation with Ouija boards or legend trips to reportedly haunted sites. However, as with many of these people, my introduction to Ghost Hunters during graduate school changed the way I thought about ghosts. As a budding symbolic interactionist, I was immediately fascinated by these paranormal investigators’ collaborative interpretations of creaking foorboards, cold breezes, and other sensory experiences as evidence of the presence of ghosts. Likewise, I was intrigued by the fact that they went to great lengths to debunk paranormal claims when this seemed to undercut their efforts to fnd proof of a haunting. Their efforts seemed to represent symbolic interaction in its purest form, in that they collaboratively produced interactions with people who were not physically present or even alive. Their use of technological devices to “prove” the existence of ghosts also piqued my interest, as it seemed that this practice fell squarely at the crossroads of science and spirituality, the two dominant ways that we make sense of the world. I decided then that I wanted to “investigate the insiders’ perspective” (Goode 2000:46) to learn how paranormal investigators came to understand the world as populated by the spirits of deceased humans.

Gaining entrée and making connections Knowing that I wanted paranormal investigation to be my next project, I was fortunate that in my very frst semester as an assistant professor the leader of Upper Midwest Paranormal, Matthew, did a public presentation about his team’s methods and evidence near where I lived. I jumped at the opportunity to meet a local “ghost hunter,” as I thought of such people at the time, and

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introduced myself after his talk. Matthew was very open to my interest and invited me to interview his team members and join the team for an investigation, which I did in February 2012 shortly after receiving approval from my Institutional Review Board. For a period of time following this initial investigation, Upper Midwest Paranormal was my only access point to paranormal investigation, and Matthew served as a key informant in these early stages of my research. In 2012 and 2013, I also attended several paranormal conferences in the region where Matthew was a featured presenter. He kindly introduced me to the leaders of other teams who were in attendance, which allowed me to snowball sample (Biernacki and Waldorf 1981) both for participant observation in other teams’ investigations and for interviews. Through these events, I also learned that Matthew and his team were widely respected for their scientifc methods, professional attitude toward clients, and active investigation schedule (averaging an investigation every one to two weeks at the time). Because of his subcultural status and network connections, Matthew served a critical gatekeeping function. Between 2012 and 2015, I attended a total of fve paranormal conferences, which are events at which paranormal enthusiasts and practitioners of all sorts— but especially those interested in ghosts—congregate to socialize, purchase items associated with the paranormal, and listen to speakers present evidence and make claims regarding the “right” ways to investigate. At these events, I introduced myself to teams and explained the purpose of my research. These contacts often led to invitations to interview team members and participate in investigations, both of which I followed up on. After these initial contacts, I was also frequently able to snowball sample within teams for further interviews. In total, contacts made through interpersonal contacts and snowball sampling resulted in twenty-four interviews with investigators from ten different teams. This sampling strategy also led to nineteen of the twenty investigations in which I participated with members of seven different paranormal investigation teams (I was unable to interview the members of two of these teams). In addition, using contact information available on teams’ websites, which I linked to from ParanormalSocieties.com, I also contacted via email multiple teams within a three-hour driving distance to inquire about interviews and possible participation in investigations. Though many of these inquiries did not receive responses and several of my messages bounced— indicating that these teams were defunct—I was able to conduct interviews with fve more investigators from two teams, and also joined one other team on an investigation (though I was unable to complete interviews with any members of this team). As I got a better picture of who was in my interview sample and began to refne my analytical interest in paranormal investigation, I also engaged in purposive and theoretical sampling (Glaser and Strauss 1967). Seeing that my sample was disproportionately White, Midwestern, and seemed to include more Catholics1 than would be expected giving the percentage in the total national population, I intentionally expanded my interview solicitation beyond the Midwest. My primary motivation was to see if the racial and religious

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identities of the investigators I had interviewed and observed were a product of the region in which I lived or was representative of the subculture as a whole. In particular, I was curious if there were elements of the doctrines in historically Black religious traditions, such as the African Methodist Episcopal church or certain Southern Baptist congregations, that inhibited participation in paranormal investigation among those who held such beliefs. I also wanted to see if there was an affnity between Catholicism and belief in ghosts or if people from Protestant or non-Christian beliefs were involved at roughly the same rates. Lastly, I wanted to determine whether the trends in “knowledge regimes” (Fine 2010) that were beginning to emerge were somehow a regional phenomenon. Using the directory of teams on ParanormalSocieties.com as a starting point, in the spring and summer of 2016 I made contact with and eventually interviewed sixteen investigators from seven different teams. To contact these teams, a student assistant and I frst attempted to cull inactive teams and teams that were not focused on searching for ghosts (such as Bigfoot hunters and UFO hunters) from the directory. Of the average of 3,568 teams listed on ParanormalSocieties.com during the period of data collection, we eliminated 2,226 teams because their directory listings contained no website link or the link provided was inactive, thereby making it impossible to verify these teams’ status.2 Another 738 teams were eliminated from consideration because an inspection of their websites showed that the they were inactive (operationalized as listing no investigations that had occurred during the previous twelve months) or that their primary focus was paranormal phenomena other than ghosts. This left 604 active paranormal investigation teams representing every state except Hawaii. From this list, I also eliminated teams from Illinois, Michigan, Minnesota, and Wisconsin, which were already well represented in my interview sample. This resulted in the removal of eighty additional teams, leading to a total of 524 teams from forty-fve states in the sample population. I arranged this list of teams in a randomized order and used an online random number generator to produce twenty-fve numbers between one and 524. Next, I attempted to contact each of these teams using either the email address of the team leader or, when unavailable, a general team email address or a “Contact Us” form that many teams had on their websites for clients to request an investigation. Though once again many of these attempts led to non-responses or bounced emails, I ultimately was able to correspond with members of seven teams from six states outside of the upper Midwest. After conducting an interview with one team member, I was usually able to snowball sample for interviews either within the team or to members of other regional teams with which my interviewee was familiar.

Demographic characteristics of paranormal investigators Of the forty-fve investigators from nineteen teams that I interviewed, nineteen were male, twenty-six were female, forty-two identifed as White, two

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identifed as Hispanic, and one identifed as Asian. Fourteen of these interviewees were also on fve of the eight teams with which I investigated. This pattern of a higher number of women and Whites was also reported by Waskul and Waskul (2016) in their interview sample of people who reported ghostly encounters. Of the ten investigators from three teams that I observed but did not have an opportunity to interview, fve were male, fve were female, nine were White, and one identifed as both Native American and White. Overall, of the approximately thirty-nine people I met during participant observation of their teams’ investigations, only two identifed with any racial or ethnic identity other than White (the aforementioned man who also identifed as Native American and one man who identifed as Hispanic). Although the racial trend that appears in my interview sample was refected in my interactions with team members and my observation of the people participating in the paranormal conferences I attended, the interview sample skews more toward females than the subculture as a whole, based on my assessment. In fact, twenty-three of the thirty-nine investigators I met during participant observation were male, and although I did not attempt to quantify the gender breakdown of everyone I observed at paranormal conferences, my impression was of a fairly even mix of men and women. This trend contrasts with survey data showing higher levels of belief that houses can be haunted among women and self-identifed Blacks (Bader et al. 2017). In terms of age, my interviewees ranged from twenty-one years old to seventy-three years old, and averaged forty-two years of age. Between twenty and ffty-nine years old they were fairly evenly distributed: nine were between twenty and twenty-nine; ten were between thirty and thirty-nine; twelve were between forty and forty-nine; and ten were between ffty and ffty-nine. I only interviewed three people who were in their sixties and one who was in her seventies. Overall, these age trends are understandable in a number of ways. Paranormal investigation is a somewhat physically demanding activity, in that investigators often lug heavy cases of equipment into and out of spaces, are frequently navigating stairways throughout a typical investigation, and have nowhere but the foor to sit when investigating certain spaces, such as abandoned properties. This helps contextualize the low numbers of investigators in their sixties and older but may lead to a presumption that the dominant age group would be people in their twenties and thirties. However, because the scientifc style of investigation is the most validated approach within the subculture, a fair amount of expendable income is required to literally buy one’s way into the “right” way of investigating. This favors people who are roughly middle-aged, who are ft enough to participate, and generally have achieved positions within their professions that afford them the additional funds to purchase equipment. Indeed, it was common for investigators to spend between $500 and $1,000 on their personal equipment, which meant that most teams brought several thousand dollars worth of equipment with them to each investigation. Although I did not collect data on my interviewees’ incomes, based on the fact

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that most reported using a small array of electronic devices—and the fact that this trend was also apparent among those who I observed but did not interview—it is reasonable to assume that most paranormal investigators are middle class or higher in terms of household income. This assumption is also supported by the fact that thirty-fve of the fortyfve interviewees had completed some college and, of those, twenty-six had received at least a technical degree (fve of which had master’s degrees). Because higher education is positively correlated with higher income, the fact that a majority of my interviewees had earned some form of college degree indicates that it is likely most are of at least middle-class standing. Most—forty of forty-fve—were employed; of the fve who were not employed, three were retired and one was a stay-at-home mom (one simply reported not working at the time of our interview). Of the forty people who were employed, twelve worked offce or desk jobs, ten worked in helping professions (including education/library, nursing/rehabilitation, and social work), eight worked in sales and customer service, six worked manual labor jobs of various sorts, and four worked in science or technology. Religious and spiritual trends within the sample of investigators I interviewed were in keeping with the curvilinear relationship reported by other scholars (Bader et al. 2012; Baker and Draper 2010; Mencken et al. 2009). Twenty interviewees (44%) identifed as Christian, though only twelve (27%) reported attending church with any regularity. Another seven (16%) investigators said they believed in God or heaven and hell, but they did not identify as Christian. The majority of investigators I interviewed—twenty-seven of fortyfve (60%)—espoused a vaguely Christian view of heaven, hell, and God but did not regularly attend church. This compares to slightly over 70% of the US population that identifed as Christian in 2014 (Pew Research Center 2015). Another signifcant group could be classifed as spiritual but not religious. Ten interviewees (22%) self-identifed as “spiritual” and explicitly distanced themselves from organized religion. This percentage is consistent with the proportion of the American population that identifes as religious “nones” (Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life 2012). Four investigators (9%)—two Wiccans and two who ascribed to a combination of Native American and Eastern spiritualities—held spiritual beliefs that could be described as neopagan or New Age. One investigator (2%) identifed as Jewish, while another three (7%) described themselves as atheist or agnostic.

Data collection and analysis In total, I conducted ffty interviews with forty-eight paranormal investigators. Four of these interviews were follow-ups with Matthew, Heidi, and Samantha (twice) following the events described in Chapter Five. I also conducted a telephone interview during which the investigator I had originally intended to interview passed the phone to two of his team members so I could ask questions of them as well. Unfortunately, the digital recording of this interview was

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corrupted and unplayable, and I was unable to complete a follow-up interview. Although I had handwritten notes from the interview, these did not provide enough detail for me to feel comfortable including the three investigators’ responses in the data presented in this book (though their responses did track closely with the patterns observed across the interview sample). One additional investigator requested to respond to my interview questions via email; unfortunately, her responses did not offer enough depth to be useful for this analysis, so she is also omitted from the data presented here. Thus, the interview data set represents responses from forty-fve distinct investigators from nineteen teams. Ten of these interviews were face to face while the remainder were conducted via telephone. The relatively low number of face-to-face interviews was not ideal but it was necessary given the relative dearth of active teams within a reasonable driving distance of the rural location in which I lived. Potential weaknesses of the telephone mode of interviewing may have been reduced by the fact that ffteen of the thirty-fve interviews completed in this way were with investigators who I had already spoken to in person and, in some cases, investigated alongside. All interviewees were provided with an informed consent form prior to our interview, and I collected signed copies from each person before beginning our conversation. Among other things, this consent form outlined procedures by which I would protect confdentiality and anonymity, and asked interviewees to affrmatively indicate (via initialing by a statement) their consent or lack of consent for the interview to be audio recorded and transcribed. All interviewees (except for the one omitted email response noted above) agreed to having our conversation recorded, and none contacted me to later request destruction of this recording or the transcript produced from it, though such an option was given on the consent form. The interviews were semi-structured in nature, and began with a series of demographic questions followed by questions pertaining to the following topics, among others: how they became interested in ghosts and hauntings, how they became aware of paranormal investigation and decided to participate, their preferred methods and tools of investigation, how their religious or spiritual beliefs (if any) intertwined with investigation, what forms of knowledge they thought should count as “evidence” of ghosts, and what they thought this was evidence of (for example, life after death, parallel dimensions, etc.). I treated the interviews as a guided conversation, allowing participants to explore topics that I had not originally intended to cover while steering the conversation back toward my areas of analytical interest when things got too far afeld. In the interest of transparency, both before and after each interview I asked participants if they had any questions for me. Often they would reply “No,” but when they did have questions these usually were variations on, “Have you ever seen a ghost?” and “What do you think about people who believe they have seen a ghost?” As I explain further in the Ethical Considerations section below, I answered these questions honestly and felt as though my interviewees appreciated my comments. In total, the interviews

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averaged eighty-seven minutes in length and eighteen single-spaced typed pages when transcribed. In addition to these interviews, I attended fve paranormal conferences and, with the permission of the speakers, audio recorded most presentations on paranormal investigation. When I was unable to receive a speaker’s consent, I took handwritten notes during their presentation and converted these to typed feldnotes as soon as possible after the speaking event. I also observed the exhibit sections of these conferences, where investigation teams sat behind folding tables that often displayed a portion of their electronic equipment or, for those who were more sensitive in their orientation, including items such as sage “smudge sticks,” quartz crystals, reiki beads, and religious items like rosaries and St. Michael’s medals. Other vendors included people selling such New Age items as well as those selling books, t-shirts, and other items related to the paranormal. With permission of the teams and vendors, I took photos of some of these tables for later analysis. Although this data is not included in the book due to concerns about the overall length of the text, these paranormal conferences were a fascinating aspect of my participant observation. More central to the analysis presented here was my participant observation during twenty paranormal investigations. In these investigations, I took what Adler and Adler (1987) refer to as an “active member-researcher” role. In this role, I assisted teams with setting up and breaking down equipment at reportedly haunted locations, occasionally walked around these locations taking “baseline readings” (measurements of atmospheric conditions in a location, such as temperature, barometric pressure, and electromagnetic frequencies), and participated in the central activities of the investigations themselves. These included asking questions during electronic voice phenomena (EVP) sessions, placing trigger objects and asking spirits to manipulate these in some way, and occasionally serving as “bait” for spirits to touch, whisper to, or otherwise produce some manifestation of their presence that I could experience with my senses. I also purchased my own equipment, including a digital audio recorder, a digital video camera with night vision, a tripod, an infrared light, a portable battery pack, and several fashlights. Like any paranormal investigator, I was responsible for setting up, breaking down and loading out, and reviewing the data recorded by my audio and video recorders. These investigations averaged roughly six hours of investigation time, plus additional time before and after as teams set up and then broke down and loaded out their equipment. In practice, this meant that I had about six hours of video plus about eight hours of audio to review following each investigation. The additional hours of audio relative to video resulted from teams’ desire to audio record the setup and break down periods in case a disembodied voice or some other audio “anomaly” (as investigators called phenomena appearing on recordings that did not seem to come from an identifable non-paranormal source) occurred during these periods. Careful review of this data was time consuming and tedious, particularly because audio and video needed to be reviewed separately in order to catch

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any anomalies that briefy appeared in the recordings. However, participation in this aspect of paranormal investigation increased my emic understanding of the practice, particularly the ways that investigators used recordings both to debunk and to support claims that a location was haunted. Moreover, following through on this task signifed to investigators that I was willing to participate in the less exciting aspects of the practice—that I was, in other words, not simply a “thrill-seeker” but was sincerely interested in understanding the “paranormal investigator” role, as described in Chapter Two. My willingness to review my data and share any seemingly anomalous fndings with the teams was therefore critical for building rapport. These audio recordings also afforded me a tremendous advantage that few ethnographers have: complete audio recordings of twenty investigations’ worth of participant observation. From the beginning, I was overt with teams about my interest in using my audio recordings as data for my research, and all consented to this use (as long as I also shared with them any anomalous audio clips, which I gladly did). As soon as possible after an investigation, I transcribed each audio recording and combined it with feld notes that I had produced from jottings (Emerson, Fretz, and Shaw 1995) that I took immediately following each investigation (since it was extremely diffcult to write anything down while investigating in near-complete darkness). Given that they are a hybrid of feld notes and audio transcripts, I refer to these documents as “feld transcripts.” These feld transcripts averaged nearly one hundred single-spaced pages in length. For some later investigations, I produced “selective feld transcripts,” which included verbatim transcriptions and feld notes for only those aspects of an investigation that were pertinent to developing analytic themes. Selective feld transcripts varied more signifcantly in length but averaged twenty-four single-spaced pages. These documents allowed me to later analyze “in vivo illustrations of narrative practice” (Gubrium and Holstein 2009:35), which were critical for the analysis presented in Chapters Three, Four, and Five. Analysis of the interview data and feld transcript data produced through participant observation followed a similar process. Using a three-phase coding model similar to that outlined by Charmaz (2006), I initially coded my frst few interviews and feld transcripts using in situ codes in order for these coding categories to be grounded in the language of the investigators themselves. Over time, patterns began to emerge in terminology used and the ways that investigators conceptualized their practice. More questions also emerged from this initial phase of coding that I believed required further inquiry. For example, I found that investigators spoke about “debunking” far more than I expected, so I revised my interview guide to ask about this practice and attuned myself to debunking efforts during subsequent investigations that I observed. These mid-stream course corrections led to new insights into the importance of debunking as a means of increasing the truth value of “evidence” that was not debunked, which is addressed in Chapter Three. During the intermediate coding phase, I began collating my data into electronic fles corresponding to the conceptual categories that I saw developing in

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the data. This required repeated re-readings of interview and feld transcripts to “discover” data that had been previously overlooked due to the absence of coding categories that made these data sociologically meaningful. As I collated and revisited my data, some coding categories collapsed into one another while others emerged to more precisely identify distinct patterns and processes. Through time and effort, these coding categories coalesced into a relatively stable set of discrete frameworks for understanding the data. At this point, I began conducting theoretical coding, revisiting my data yet again to search for examples to reinforce and further refne the developing analysis. When appropriate, I complimented this three-phase coding model with other methodological approaches that were more specifc to the purposes of a particular aspect of the overall analysis. For example, in examining the narrative development of a haunting (Chapter Five), I relied upon Riessman’s (2008) dialogic analysis framework, which encourages qualitative sociologists to holistically examine narrative accounts as “social artifacts” (106) that are produced in a “dialogic environment” (137) that includes interactional, situational, and historical contexts.

Ethical considerations In all ethnographic research, protection of the confdentiality of setting participants and interviewees is paramount. However, the stakes are arguably higher when these individuals are engaged in a practice that, while perfectly legal, is potentially stigmatizing in a cultural context that defnes belief in ghosts, let alone attempts to interact with ghosts, as irrational or even sacrilegious. As Waskul and Waskul (2016:154–56) point out, in research involving tales of hauntings the usual directive to protect confdentiality extends to the dead as well as to the locations in which such events are said to take place. For the living, there is the risk of “outing” these people as believers— indeed, a number of interviewees described themselves “in the closet” about their paranormal beliefs and practices. I therefore used pseudonyms for all investigators and omitted details that I thought may allow people who were familiar with these individuals to identify them in my writing. For the dead, reputation is also a concern, as is consent. None of the loved ones of the people who were named in stories of alleged hauntings had any knowledge that their friend or family member was being identifed to me as the spirit haunting a location, and the deceased individual obviously had no such knowledge (unless their spirit was listening in). Therefore, the issue of informed consent arose in these circumstances. To avoid any ethical quandaries, I opted to use pseudonyms for the ghosts who were specifcally named during my interviews and participant observation. Several of the locations where I participated in paranormal investigations shared their ghost stories with the public through websites, or even commodifed these through ghost tours or charging investigation teams hundreds of dollars to have the place to themselves. These locations were haunted by

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“commercial ghosts” (Waskul 2018) and therefore had a vested interest in paranormal investigators visiting their sites. However, other locations requested that the teams be inconspicuous about their presence (arriving after closing time, parking in the loading area, etc.) and not produce any report of the investigation that would be publicly shared on the team’s websites. Because I did not wish to “out” the latter group of locations or add to the coffers of the former group, I opted to use pseudonyms for all locations (and even used a pseudonym for the television show that featured one of these locations, as shown in Chapter Five). The ethical question of representation is a fnal point of concern. More specifcally, there is a two-pronged ethical question here: how to represent yourself to those in your feld setting, and how to represent setting members to the academic community that is the intended audience for your work. As to the former, the main concern that arose among those I interviewed and observed was my motivation for wanting to study paranormal investigators. This suspicion was justifed in general, as academics have generally dismissed as foolish or mentally unstable those who profess belief in ghosts and other paranormal phenomena. Investigators wanted to know what I believed, both about ghosts and about them. It was imperative that I be honest with them about my beliefs. I told all who asked that I could not claim to have ever experienced anything that I thought was a sign of a spiritual presence, but several people I trusted did claim to have such experiences, even though they had nothing to gain (and perhaps something to lose) by making such claims. I also told them that I, like (most of) them, got interested in paranormal investigation by watching reality-style television shows (Ghost Hunters, in my case) and was genuinely intrigued by, though skeptical about, the prospect that it may be possible to fnd evidence of life after death. Ultimately, these answers resonated with most investigators and led to fruitful conversations and a sense of affnity. The fact that an individual with “Dr” in front of his name was taking their perspective seriously also benefted them, in that—to adapt Goffman’s famous concept (1963)—paranormal investigators enjoyed “courtesy legitimacy” by being associated with an academic with a professorship position at a respected institution of higher education. In regard to the question of how to represent paranormal investigators to the academic community, it is my hope that the preceding analysis shows due respect to those I interviewed and observed. Although, for me, the question of the ontological reality of ghosts is still an unsettled matter—and, truth be told, if I had to pick a side I would favor the non-existence of such beings—I have tried to show that for those who believe, this belief is arrived at only after serious refection upon their life experiences, their spiritual worldviews, certain scientifc theories, and the “evidence” that emerges in the course of paranormal investigations. Like Waskul and Waskul (2016) concluded in regard to people who believe they have encountered spiritual entities of some sort, I found that paranormal investigators were by and large a logical, level-headed

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group of people who simply shared the deviant beliefs that ghosts exist and we might be able to fnd evidence for this existence through sensory, extrasensory, and technological means. Moreover, they were generous with their time and willing to make themselves vulnerable to sociological analysis for my beneft. As explained in Chapter Six, the vast majority are motivated, at least in part, by a desire to help people, both living and dead. Regardless of what others may think about the reasonableness of investigators’ beliefs about ghosts, I believe that their desire to help those who they perceive to be suffering in some way is an admirable trait that too often is ignored in the collective rush to discredit these people on the basis of materialist or religious critiques. I should note that my use of terms such as “claimed,” “purported,” “believed,” or other similar qualifers should be read only as an acknowledgment that such things cannot be defnitively proven and not as a sign that I found these people to be dishonest or delusional. It has been my intent to represent paranormal investigators both respectfully and honestly, and I hope that I have achieved this here.

Notes 1 Waskul and Waskul (2016:138) also reported a higher-than-expected number of Catholics in their interview sample. 2 I report an average number of teams because the directory listing fuctuated between 3,524 and 3,613 teams between February and April 2016, when the data was collected.

References Adler, Patricia A. and Peter Adler. 1987. Membership Roles in Field Research, vol. 6 in Qualitative Research Methods. Newbury Park, CA: Sage. Bader, Christopher D., Joseph O. Baker, and F. Carson Mencken. 2017. Paranormal America: Ghost Encounters, UFO Sightings, Bigfoot Hunts, and Other Curiosities in Religion and Culture. 2nd ed. New York: New York University Press. Bader, Christopher D., Joseph O. Baker, and Andrea Molle. 2012. “Countervailing Forces: Religiosity and Paranormal Beliefs in Italy.” Journal for the Scientifc Study of Religion 51(4):705–20. Baker, Joseph O. and Scott Draper. 2010. “Diverse Supernatural Portfolios: Certitude, Exclusivity, and the Curvilinear Relationship Between Religiosity and Paranormal Beliefs.” Journal for the Scientifc Study of Religion 49(3):413–24. Biernacki, Patrick and Dan Waldorf. 1981. “Snowball Sampling: Problems and Techniques of Chain Referral Sampling.” Sociological Methods and Research 10(2):141–63. Charmaz, Kathy. 2006. Constructing Grounded Theory: A Practical Guide through Qualitative Analysis. London: Sage. Emerson, Robert M., Rachel I. Fretz, and Linda L. Shaw. 1995. Writing Ethnographic Fieldnotes. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Fine, Gary A. 2010. “The Sociology of the Local: Action and Its Publics.” Sociological Theory 28(4):355–76. Glaser, Barney and Anselm Strauss. 1967. The Discovery of Grounded Theory: Strategies for Qualitative Research. Chicago, IL: Aldine Publishing Co.

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Goffman, Erving. 1963. Stigma: Notes on the Management of a Spoiled Identity. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall. Goode, Erich. 2000. Paranormal Beliefs: A Sociological Introduction. Prospect Heights, IL: Waveland Press. Gubrium, Jaber F. and James A. Holstein. 2009. Analyzing Narrative Reality. Los Angeles, CA: Sage. Mencken, F. Carson, Christopher D. Bader, and Ye Jung Kim. 2009. “Round Trip to Hell in a Flying Saucer: The Relationship between Conventional Christian and Paranormal Beliefs in the United States.” Sociology of Religion 70(1):65–85. Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life. 2012. ‘Nones’ on the Rise: One-In-Five Adults Have No Religious Affliation. Washington, DC: Pew Research Center. Pew Research Center. 2015. America’s Changing Religious Landscape. Washington, DC: Pew Research Center. Riessman, Catherine K. 2008. Narrative Methods for the Human Sciences. Los Angeles, CA: Sage. Waskul, Dennis. 2018. “Ghosts and Hauntings: Genres, Forms, and Types.” Pp. 54–75. In: The Supernatural in Society, Culture, and History, edited by D. Waskul and M. Eaton. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press. Waskul, Dennis with Michele Waskul. 2016. Ghostly Encounters: The Hauntings of Everyday Life. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press.

Index

actors 5, 91, 94, 163 Adler, Patricia 176 Adler, Peter 176 Amityville Horror, The (flm) 43 angels 31, 59, 74, 151 Bader, Christopher D. 3–6, 8–9, 12, 43, 118, 122, 141–2, 149, 173–4 Baker, Joseph O. 3, 5–6, 8–9, 12, 19, 40, 122, 146, 149, 166, 174 Baptist 30–31, 33, 147, 149; Southern 29, 38, 148–9, 172 Bell, Michael M. 118 Berger, Peter L. 2, 4, 27–8, 99 Bialecki, Jon 163 Bigfoot 38, 172 Blumer, Herbert 87 Bogdan, Robert 92–3, 162 Borderlands Paranormal Research Team 83 Cahill, Spencer E. 45, 52–3, 57, 65, 90–1, 95, 99, 114, 162 camera: handheld 8; still 9; digital video 9, 47–8, 51, 103, 130, 176 Campos-Castillo, Celeste 94, 115 Catholicism 23, 26, 29–31, 33–4, 37–8, 64, 85, 148, 150–2, 171–2, 180n1 Cerulo, Karen A. 163 Charmaz, Kathy 177 Childs, Carrie 6, 126, 132 Christian 2–3, 12, 28, 30, 33, 35–7, 40, 64, 74, 147, 149–51, 163, 172, 174 Civil War (American) 7, 23 clairaudience 10, 21 clairsentience 10, 21 clairvoyance 10, 21 Conan Doyle, Arthur 7 Conjuring, The (flm) 43 Cooley, Charles H. 65, 93

Crookes, William 7 Cross, Anne 10 Crossroads Paranormal 53 Dark Forces (TV show) 122–4, 126, 133, 137, 138n2 debunking 7, 47, 69–70, 83–8, 156–8, 170, 177 demons 2–3, 30, 35–6, 74, 121–2, 148, 150–1, 155, 166 detectors: frequency 47–8, 103; motion 9; radiation 9, 82; see also electromagnetic feld digital audio recorder 9, 51, 83, 121, 176 Durkheim, Emile 2–3 Eaton, Marc A. 3, 6, 9, 11, 45, 112 Edison, Thomas 144 electromagnetic feld (EMF) 9, 47, 74, 81–2, 85–6, 105, 111, 157; detector 9, 11, 53, 73, 85–6, 104–5, 108–10, 121; meter 53–4, 85 electronic voice phenomena (EVP) 49–52, 63, 69–71, 75, 83–5, 103–5, 108–12, 126, 145–6, 153, 176 enlightenment 3, 56, 141–2 Episcopal 29, 149, 172 extrasensory: abilities 7–8, 10, 14n3, 21, 29–30, 32–3, 35–6, 38, 44, 47–8, 50–2, 55–6, 59–61, 75–6, 79–80, 158–60, 170; claims 11, 52, 77, 79, 86, 88, 100; experiences 10, 19, 21–2, 28–30, 32–3, 35, 37, 39, 60; means 22, 75–6, 109; perception 28, 34, 38, 55, 60, 98, 104, 110, 165 Fine, Gary Alan 13, 45, 71, 115, 119–20, 131, 164, 172 Foucault, Michel 2 Fox sisters (Kate, Maggie, Leah) 7, 14n2

184 Index ghost: beliefs 3, 13n1, 14n1, 28, 30, 39–40, 146; -buster 62; existence of 4, 8, 10, 22, 25, 28, 32, 34–5, 38–40, 46, 75, 115, 118, 121, 141–2, 146, 163, 170; hunters 4, 62–63, 170; interest in 8, 13, 19–20, 24–8, 30–5, 37–9, 42, 65, 166, 170; lore 1, 95, 110, 118, 121; stories 13, 20, 23–4, 26, 29, 33, 39, 91, 94, 121, 137, 178 Ghost Adventures (TV show) 8, 12, 24, 33, 43, 53, 61 Ghostbusters (flm) 24, 43, 62, 170 Ghost Hunters (TV show) 8, 12, 24, 33, 43–5, 53, 61, 170, 179 Ghost Investigators 47, 76, 100–1, 103, 108 ghostly: activity 99, 118; encounters 6, 39, 90, 96–7, 120, 123, 173; presence 31, 70, 90 Gieryn, Thomas F. 2, 54, 123, 131, 144, 165 Gilbert, G. Nigel 81, 83, 88, 132, 135, 165 Gilbert, Hannah 61, 75 God 3, 12, 30–1, 34, 37, 39, 56, 58, 74, 148–51, 163, 174 Goffman, Erving 4, 9, 68–9, 74, 87, 93–6, 110, 120, 160, 179 Goldstein, Diane E. 8, 118, 122 Gottschalk, Simon 13, 164–5 Grider, Sylvia Ann 8, 118, 122 Grossman House 76, 103–5 Gubrium, Jaber F. 13, 92, 119, 121, 123, 131, 162–3, 177 Guiding Light Investigation 49 Halloween 33 Hanks, Michele 6, 81 haunting 1–3, 6, 8–10, 13, 18–20, 24, 26–31, 33–4, 38, 46–7, 51–2, 54, 57, 59, 61–2, 64–5, 72, 81–3, 86, 88, 91–2, 94–9, 102, 105–6, 110, 112, 118, 120–3, 133, 136, 153–4, 156, 158, 164, 170, 173, 175–8 Haunting, A (TV show) 43 Haunting, The (flm) 43 Heartland Paranormal 47 Heath, Christian 69, 71 heaven 12, 30–1, 33, 146, 150–1, 174 hell 12, 31, 33, 121–2, 133, 146, 149–51, 155, 174 Hidden Truth Paranormal 51 Highwayman Inn 72, 81, 106, 110–11, 114, 120–4, 128, 132–7 Hill, Sharon A. 6, 9, 12, 54, 81, 142–3, 153, 165 Hitlin, Steven 94, 115

Hochschild, Arlie R. 45, 57, 65 Holstein, James A. 13, 119, 121, 123, 131, 163, 177 Holzer, Hans 43 Hufford, David J. 18–19, 21–2, 24, 39, 146, 166 In Search of (TV show) 24 institutional: religion 1, 3–4, 18, 32, 40, 141–2, 146, 150, 153, 160, 165; science 1–4, 10, 18, 40, 81, 141–2, 153, 159–60, 165 interviewees and team members: Alex 82; Allison 38, 51, 53, 55–6, 59–60, 76–8, 100–1, 108–10, 112–14, 150–1; Anita 72; Anna 103–4, 112–14; Barb 37–8, 42, 48; Becky 72, 74, 86; Brett 112–13; Bruce 86; Carol 72; Chad 24, 37, 44–5, 58, 62, 82, 87, 104–5, 123, 125–33, 137, 138n4; Christy 20, 36–7, 43–4, 55, 59; Connor 25, 34–5, 42, 48, 55; Dave 25–6, 50–1, 149–50; Debra 29–30, 43, 58, 63, 148; Dennis 24, 48, 55, 60, 64, 77–8, 87; Diane 72, 86; Doug 144–5, 147–8, 154; Fiona 22, 25, 33–4, 50, 52, 61, 151, 154; Gabriel 75, 85–6, 125–7, 129–31, 137–8; Gary 103–4; Greg 33, 156; Gretchen 33; Hannah 49; Heidi 38–9, 53, 70–2, 74, 87, 104–5, 125–38, 148. 174; Jack 47–8, 57, 145; Jason 86; Jenn 112; Jennifer 20, 54, 64, 151–2, 157; Jeremiah 36–7, 51, 56, 60, 63, 76, 78–9, 100–1, 108–10, 112–14; Jerry 55–6, 79–80, 99–100; Jessi 72–3, 81, 106–7, 110–11, 114, 121, 123–9, 132–4, 137–8; Josh 33, 61, 146; Julie 22; Kathleen 24, 55–6, 143; Kaye 20, 31, 49, 147; Kelly 38, 157; Kenneth 35–7, 49, 60, 143, 158–9; Kevin 29–30, 149– 50; Liz 24, 31, 42, 146, 155; Matthew 24, 43, 47, 53, 57, 63, 70–1, 77, 80, 84–5, 87, 99–100, 104, 121–3, 125–35, 137–8, 143, 170–1, 174; Melissa 148; Mike 24, 32–3, 112–14; Nancy 101–2, 152; Nate 86; Norah 21–2, 29–30, 152; Pattie 26–7, 31–2, 59–60, 108, 112, 155; Phil 20, 42, 83, 144–5, 148; Rachel 44, 49, 62, 151, 159; Raven 31, 50, 155–6; Rob 77–9, 112; Robin 30–1, 50, 55; Roger 23–4, 30, 43, 62, 103–4, 108–9; Sabrina 21–2, 29–30, 52, 149–50, 156, 158–9; Sally 26, 34–5, 44, 64, 148, 152; Samantha 70, 72–3, 81, 85, 106–7, 111, 122–3, 125–30, 132–5, 137–8, 138n4,

Index 174; Sandra 55; Sarah 25, 144; Sasha 104–5; Scott 84–5, 99–100; Steven 26, 34, 44, 53, 150; Sue 72–3, 106–7; Suzanne 20, 42, 151, 158; Ted 72–3, 81, 106, 110–11; Teresa 72–4, 106–7; Terri 23–4, 47, 53, 62, 144–5; Todd 85, 125, 127, 129–30, 137–8; Tommy 58, 72–3, 106; Vicki 101–2; Xavier 53, 58, 155; Yvette 30, 153–4 Ironside, Rachel J. 6, 70 James, William 7 K2 meter 9, 54 Kleinman, Sherryl 45, 57, 65 Lake City Ghost Investigators 47, 76, 100–1, 103, 108 Latour, Bruno 80, 83, 88, 165 Laubach, Marty 5, 74 Lodge, Oliver 7 Lois, Jennifer 57 Luckmann, Thomas 2, 28, 99 Luhrmann, Tanya M. 58, 74, 151, 163 McDonald-Wikler, Lynn 92 Maines, David R. 119, 136, 164 Mead, George Herbert 65, 90–3, 114, 162–3 Mencken, F. Carson 3, 5, 8, 12, 19, 146, 166, 174 Mission Objective Paranormal 54 Molle, Andrea 4–6, 9, 12, 43, 118 Mulkay, Michael 81, 83, 88, 132, 135, 165 Murray, Craig D. 6, 126, 132 Native American 30, 56, 118, 156, 159, 173–4 New Age 5, 10–11, 59, 174, 176 Nightstalkers Paranormal Research 48 Nimoy, Leonard 24 Old Hag/sleep paralysis 18, 21–2, 24, 166 Others, The (flm) 43 Ouija board 36, 43, 170 Outer Limits (TV show) 24 Ovilus 9, 69, 103–4, 108–10 Owens, Erica 92, 163 paranormal: beliefs 1–5, 18–19, 27–30, 32–3, 35, 37–8, 40, 64, 74, 81, 141, 146, 149–51, 162, 166, 178; experience 4–5, 13, 19, 23, 30–1, 47, 84, 121, 133, 149–51, 157, 166, 170; investigators

185

1, 4, 6, 8–13, 19, 39–40, 42, 44–6, 49–50, 53, 57, 61–6, 68–70, 80–3, 85, 87–8, 90–1, 96–9, 102–6, 112, 114–15, 118–22, 124, 136, 141–6, 148, 151, 153, 158–9, 160n1, 164–6, 170, 172, 174, 176–7, 179–80 Paranormal Activity (flm) 43 paranormal investigation: shows 8, 24, 43–4, 53, 118, 122, 136; subculture 2, 6, 8–11, 54, 56, 88; teams 1, 4, 11–12, 25–6, 32, 34, 42–3, 45, 74, 96, 143, 150, 154, 171–2 Paranormal Research Network 49 Paranormal State (TV Show) 8, 12, 43–4, 61 personhood 90–1, 93–5, 98–9, 102, 104, 114–15, 162–3 Pliny the Younger 94 Pollner, Melvin 92 Prairieland Paranormal researchers 71, 86 Price, Harry 43 Protestants 60, 151, 172 psychical research 2, 7–8 psychometry 10, 21 reincarnation 25, 31, 42 Rhine, J.B. 7 Rhodes, Ron 3 Riessman, Catherine 121, 129, 178 Riverside Phantom Chasers 51, 53, 108, 112 Rock City Ghost Hunters 50 Rust Belt Revenant Seekers 49–50 Sanders, Clinton R. 91–3, 114, 162 Scientifc Observation of Unknown Lifeforms (S.O.U.L.) 72 sensitives: female 11, 48; male 11, 59–61; non- 44, 48–50, 54, 57–8, 61, 147, 153, 155–6, 158–9 Shadow Catchers Paranormal 72 sleep paralysis see Old Hag Smith, Dorothy 120, 129, 135–6, 164 social objects 162–3 Society for Psychical Research: UK 7; USA 7 spirits: emplotting 13; evidence of 13, 61, 85; sensing 12, 18, 49, 56, 68, 80 spirit sense 1, 13, 21, 30–1, 36, 42, 48–9, 52, 65, 115, 121, 141, 164 Spiritualism 1, 3, 7–8, 14n2, 61 spirituality 5, 10, 145–6, 151–2, 170 Stine, R.L. 24 Stryker, Sheldon 102, 162 supernatural 2–3, 13n1, 19, 28, 118, 122–3, 135, 146 Supernatural (TV show) 43

186 Index Tales from the Crypt (TV show) 33 Taylor, Steven J. 92–3, 162 team members see interviewees Thomas, Jeannie Banks 8, 94, 118, 122 Twilight Zone (TV show) 24 UFO (Unidentifed Flying Objects) 10, 38, 172 Unsolved Mysteries (TV show) 43, 170 Upper Midwest Paranormal 44–5, 48, 55, 61, 64, 70, 72, 75, 77, 79, 82, 84–5, 87, 99, 104, 120–2, 126, 128, 134–8, 170–1 Uptown Theater 79, 84, 99

Vannini, Phillip 13, 69–71, 73, 87–8, 91, 114, 163–5 vibration sensor 9, 104, 121 Waskul, Dennis 5–6, 13, 13n1, 84, 92, 95–6, 118, 120, 122, 137, 163–5, 173, 178–9, 180n1 Waskul, Michele 5–6, 84, 92, 96, 118, 120, 122, 137, 173, 178–9, 180n1 Woofftt, Robin 10, 58, 61, 75–6, 79, 88, 134, 165 Woolgar, Steve 80, 83, 88, 165 Zhao, Shanyang 94–5, 163