The Open-minded Skeptic

By: Kris Baker

Sounds oxymoron doesn’t it?  Is it possible to be open to new ideas and possibilities, yet you do not believe, or you question other’s conclusions?  What role does this play when it comes to ghost tracking? 

The best piece of advice that I can pass on to you is let the evidence guide you.  You should enter any hunt or investigation with an open-mind but do not be so open minded that you accept everything that happens as paranormal.  A lot of times there is a very logical explanation for reported paranormal activity.  We, as paranormal researchers, need to be able to eliminate all of those natural explanations before determining that something is in fact paranormal in nature. 

Let’s say that you have been asked to investigate a home where the residents claim that there have been shadows, apparitions, levitations and unusual sounds.  You and your team go in one evening, set up your equipment and spend 6 hours in the home.  You have tried to recreate the shadows and sounds that have been reported yet all of your efforts fail to do so.  You review all of your data from that evening and come up empty handed.  Does this mean that the house is not haunted?  Does this mean that the people were trying to pull a fast one?  No.  You know as well as I do that ghosts do not perform on command and will not show up just because that day is the day you chose to conduct the investigation. 

How can you tell someone that they are not seeing what they say they saw?  You can’t.  The only thing you can say is that you were not able to find a logical explanation for the phenomena that they reported and that you were not able to obtain anything scientifically.   There is nothing wrong with reassuring the clients that you believe what they told you; however, at this particular time you cannot confirm that the residence is haunted.  By doing this you are remaining the open-minded skeptic.