Sue St.Clair and Matthew Didier's Paranormal Blog

While lately going over some recent cases, I mentioned to Sue that we should do an article outlining some predictions that are destined, at some point, to come true.

We don't WANT them to come true... we don't know if they'll come true in a week, a month, a year, or even within a decade... but they are foregone conclusions.

This article is simply us pointing them out to other people involved (or just "fans" of,) paranormal topics.

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#1: Someone will go bankrupt thanks to shady psychics, house-clearers, or the like.

It's a given that someone, out there, possibly reading this now or that you know (or even someone you will know,) will lose their shirt because they will fall victim and become prey to shaky if not completely fraudulent "help" from someone more interested in opening the person's wallet and extracting cash than anything else.

The best thing for these people is, if you do your homework, no "house clearing" or similar thing has ever been documented as completely successful in ridding the victim of all unwanted events... so these people can, will, and do go back to the trough time and time again... until the bank runs dry. They "sell" services and do shaky research to validate their crap and they WILL fleece an unsuspecting person who is honestly looking for help. It has happened... it will happen again. Sadder still when there is FREE advice that is very effective available... (See http://psican.org/alpha/clearinghelp01.htm )

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#2: Another person will be killed, maimed, or seriously injured investigating claims of the paranormal.

Although the case in Toronto from September of 2009 is still fresh in many people's minds here, (See http://www.psican.org/links/no1spadina/ ) and was more-or-less debunked by good work from a reporter at the newspaper, "The Globe and Mail", as not being related to "ghost hunting" (that was a canard developed, one assumes, to sell more papers and whatnot by other media outlets,) we still here people shrieking that anyone telling them to get permission to be at a place or work in only safe environments are somehow out to ruin their fun, keep information away from them, or otherwise suppress their abilities to "do stuff".

Eventually, and again it's happened before, people will barge ahead an yes, serious injury or even death will occur... and all of us in the field will pay for it.

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#3: A person with a legitimate and probably very treatable legitimate health concern will go without help because they *must* stick to a paranormal answer to what is happening to them.

Sadly, this will most likely be a child or someone who has a guardian... who, in the belief that what their charge is going through MUST be related to something "supernatural", will ignore health concerns or behavioural problems in desperate search for the person that will feed their belief.

The real issue here is there are many people in this study feel quite qualified and knowledgeable enough to make quick assessments about a persons (or scarier yet, a child's) health and well being... so they will gladly feed the need for a "paranormal" answer without any questions... or write off someone they think is "crazy" without suggesting they be checked out by a physician.

Rule one should be, in cases where things are happening to one person only, is to ask a witness to check in with a physician first... for two possible reasons.

First, on a simple "check up" to a general practitioner (family doctor,) one can then say, in the collection of data, that the witness had a clean bill of health. Always good.

Second, and this is true in Ontario, if something is wrong from a psychological side of things, a "family doctor" (or GP) can actually suggest and send a patient to a psychologist or psychiatrist for further evaluation and it (at that point,) is covered by OHIP (medical insurance coverage).

If this is not done and someone simply "feeds" the paranormal angle, it will eventually lead to tragic consequences... doubly-so as, again, it seems it will most likely be a child.

Unless the person you're discussing things with is a fully qualified (legitimate) doctor, you should always rule out health concerns first... but, as this is sad predictions that WILL come true, someone won't.

Someone will then feel the need to feed the paranormal solution without proper checks, and indeed, someone will hurt themselves or others. It's a given.

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#4: Laws will be broken in the name of research and investigation.

As stated in #2 above, there's still a plethora of thrill seekers and people who genuinely don't seem to care about anything than their own pet hypothesis or even "fame" who are willing to more or less fling themselves into places and trespass and even "hack" computers to find "the truth".

Nothing in this study is worth criminal charges... and it hurts us all when that happens... but it's a given... it will happen again.

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#5: People looking to learn will be given rubbish just so that the "information" fits a paradigm of the paranormal investigator/researcher and they can appear "right" or "smart".

This isn't just the blatant statements of absolutes based on little more than speculation or cherished faith, this is also in terms of history and science.

We have seen multiple cases where the history of a site, home, and even people have been either completely ignored in favour of what can only be termed lies or, at best, manipulated data to fit a "good story" to "sell soap".

We've also seen countless times where science is invoked where it has no presence... like "UFO sightings are easily spotted by high levels of radiation." Really? What's that based on? Specifics please...

How about "Ghosts exude a traceable EM signature..." Again, really? What is that trace signature? What data do you provide to show this?

Either way, what's truly horrible is that many people set themselves up as "teaching" when they are little more than parroting poor science (if that) that they don't understand while evoking images of fantasy to make a story more "interesting". This garbage information, when given to young people and students, usually finds it's way to school work, assignments, or other items... and to be honest, it's not unusual to hear about a young student shamed for echoing back the bad data and being questioned... and often, corrected by a teacher or whomever. This is because a self-proclaimed "authority" said so to them... and therefore, must be correct... well, until reality hits.

NEVER accept a "fact" without empirical evidence and NEVER replace evidence with hypothesis and faith... but again, saying that... I know it will happen... and continue to happen... and there's little anyone can do.

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So, there you go... five unfortunate predictions... guaranteed to come true sometime probably within ten years or much less... of course, there is always the chance that everyone will read this, absorb it, and prevent the inevitable from occurring... but again, I wouldn't hold my breath.

It's these "absolute" predictions that are pretty much a given that continue to keep paranormal research and investigation out of mainstream and "legitimate" academia... as many of our colleagues (and many of you readers,) have told us, these folks that WILL make the predictions come true advance the cause of "so-called" sceptics moreso than anyone else.

We feel that "our" job... those that read and understand this, is to simply distance ourselves from those that will be responsible for the ensuing damage... more or less TRY to reach out and keep people away from what is seemingly predestined to become wreckage, but otherwise realise that as sure as people will speed in their car, kids will put their hands in a cookie jar, and pet dogs will grab food from a plate left near where they can "get at it", these predictions will happen... and there's a tonne of people quite willing to facilitate these moments in search of everything from a cheap thrill to their very own reality TV show.