The following was previously published in The Feminine Macabre vol 5 under my dead name. If you reference it using The Feminine Macabre, please consider using my chosen name, Dex Bryant, and updated link here. Thank you.
There’s this idea that when you become a paranormal investigator that most if not all of the investigations you research or go on will be…well, paranormal. Especially the notorious ones where it seems everyone and their mother has an experience. That the world is full of ghosts, cryptids, and more and you can’t swing an EVP monitor without bumping into something. So when you hit a rash of cases that have not only perfectly logical and mundane explanations but also contain traces of hoax and malicious (but very much alive) human activity, it can be off-putting.
I certainly didn’t enter the field of the paranormal to be a debunker and skeptic. I’m a practicing witch, spirit worker, and definitely a believer. My whole life is based on a foundation that the world is full of magic and a lot weirder than humans can even imagine. So when I found myself in the debunker seat, I wasn’t exactly thrilled.
Disillusionment
The case that hit me hard is one from near where I was born. It had all the hallmarks of a bad horror movie. Creepy name, backwoods cemetery, and a long list of folks claiming strange experiences. Devil’s Creek and Wolf Pit Church was supposed to be a hotbed of cryptid, ghost, and even cult activity.
What I found instead was Satanic Panic style stories over misunderstood names and the stomping grounds of partiers who not only littered the place with bad vibes and beer cans but also defaced graves and trespassed private property. If there were ghosts and cryptids here, they’ve likely long left for more peaceful venues.
By the end of the story, I was just sad. My write up and podcast on the case was spent lecturing on how to respect a location as a paranormal investigator. I felt like a cranky old person telling teens to get off their lawn. This was not what I signed up for.
After the experience of debunking more hauntings and phenomena than finding anything paranormal, I slipped into a bit of a depression. I stopped making content and didn’t go near paranormal investigation for nearly a year. I was sad and frustrated.
Talking to other paranormal investigators, I knew I wasn’t alone and most of them said they wished this part of the field was talked about more. I heard stories of teams called in on haunted house claims and finding hoax set ups ranging from walkie-talkies in attics making “ghost sounds” to masks in windows. Many had similar situations to mine where they research a paranormal location but are so mired in the lies, disrespect, and nonsense of the living to reach through and figure out if the dead and strange are even present. Lots of people come to the field but the cost, time, and role of the debunking skeptic acts as a sieve, leaving only a handful when the day is done.
Coming Back to My Purpose
One of the things that brought me back to the field after taking some time to get my head on straight was a natal chart reading from astrologer Maighdlin Kelly. (For the astrology fans out there, I am a Gemini ascendant, Sagittarius sun, and have a bunch of planets including Mercury and Saturn in my 8th house, Capricorn.) When doing my reading, they pointed out that a lot of the activity in my chart is about information gathering, processing, and finding meaning in it. It was heavy in “figuring out all the weird stuff in life” but tempered by the heavier Saturnian fact strategies.
They pointed out that despite all the occult house placements there is also this vibe of someone who is no-nonsense and doesn’t believe everything at face value. This combination stuck with me during my time away from paranormal investigation. It seemed to me that I was not just bucking against the reality of the paranormal field but also something ingrained in my own natal chart. That skepticism and debunking was a reality I needed to not only face but embrace if I wanted to be me, much less investigate the weird stuff I was into.
I then got real about why I was so frustrated about the debunking process. It came down to the fact that I was a believer not only of ghosts and cryptids but also of magic, the animistic idea that there are spirits in all things, elementals, and more. The idea of a spot not having any spirit activity at all was strange to me. I was sure that if I could get past the pile of false information, hoaxes, and other trash (literal and metaphorical) that other people piled on these notorious cases, I could tap into something wonderfully weird.
Realization
That was when it hit me. I was looking at debunking all wrong. I wasn’t frustrated with the process of fact checking and removing false claims. My frustration stemmed from people, not the process. I was letting these problems become a brick wall and not pushing through long enough to find the weird. In the end, I needed to change my outlook on the process itself.
I couldn’t look at debunking as a tiresome activity getting in the way of paranormal investigation. Debunking is a tool that I could use as a believer to remove the dross and focus on the weird gold I was looking for. It was a scalpel to remove the festering problems of false claims and hoaxes in order to let the weird beneath it thrive.
This realization demanded that I re-define debunking for myself. It wasn’t the act of saying “there’s nothing strange here.” Instead, there are aspects to this investigation whether the story, history, or parts of the activity are not what they have been claimed to be when the paranormal phenomenon was reported.
Thankfully, I am not the only paranormal investigator that has come to a similar conclusion. A notable case of debunking is that of the Dybbuk Box debunked by Greg and Dana Newkirk of Planet Weird. They covered the case on their Haunted Objects Podcast. What stood out to me was how they didn’t approach the knowledge of the dybbuk boxes being proven not to contain a demon but rather were thrilled to see that something even weirder was going on. They didn’t stop when they debunked the original story and claims. Instead they kept digging and went down a road of the paranormal that is rarely spoken about – one they call intentional haunting but has many other names from egregores to the creation of familiars.
Their experience debunking a famous paranormal phenomenon was inspiring because of their outlook. They didn’t throw the baby out with the bathwater. Instead, they treated the process like panning for gold and found quite the nugget.
Return
Finally, I returned to paranormal investigation. I knew I could use debunking to find out what a case is not. After that, I can then spend the next leg of the journey trying different methods of investigation to find out what the case actually is. When investigating a local famous haunting, once I removed the false information and debunked the claims of other writers, I realized that to find any real spirit activity I was going to have to try something new.
The debunking methods worked to show that the notorious spirit activity of The Bell Witch in Tennessee was not caused by Native American curses or a neighbor’s witchcraft. It did not however prove or disprove the spirit activity itself. For that I would need to set aside the claims and come at the case fresh and raw and ask the spirits present what the real story was. This meant omitting the usual line of questioning that past investigations relied heavily on. I wouldn’t use names or terms or events that I’d already debunked. Instead, it was like meeting a complete stranger with all of its uncertainty and excitement. This couldn’t have happened without the initial debunking process.
In short, skepticism and the tool of debunking has made me a better investigator and believer.