Jan. 17, 2025

Inside the Paranormal: Loyd Auerbach on Hauntings, Poltergeists, and Parapsychology

In this episode of Haunted History Chronicles, I am joined by world-renowned parapsychologist and paranormal investigator, Loyd Auerbach. With over 45 years of experience, Loyd shares his unique insights into the world of paranormal investigation, including his work with the Rhine Research Centre, the ethical challenges of ghost hunting, and the science behind psychic phenomena. He recounts some of the most fascinating cases he’s investigated and explores how media has shaped public perception of the supernatural. Join us for an in-depth discussion with one of the most respected figures in the field of parapsychology.

My Special Guest Is Loyd Auerbach

World-recognised paranormal authority and parapsychologist Loyd Auerbach, MS., has 45 years of experience investigating the paranormal and over 40 years teaching courses in Parapsychology. With thousands of media appearances, he is Director of the Office of Paranormal Investigations, President of the Forever Family Foundation, an Adjunct Professor at Atlantic University, and President of the Board of Directors of the Rhine Research Centre where he teaches online Parapsychology courses through the Rhine Education Centre. He’s the author/co-author of 9 books on the paranormal for the general public including the recent 2nd edition of A Paranormal Casebook, as well as ESP Wars: East & West, Psychic Dreaming, and the classic ESP, Hauntings and Poltergeists: A Parapsychologist’s Handbook. He is also co-author of the paranormal mystery novels Near Death: A Raney/Daye Investigation and the second in the series, After Life. He is a professional mentalist and Past President of the Psychic Entertainers Association performing as Professor Paranormal, and also occasionally does his thing as a professional chocolatier. You can see him in episodes of The UnXplained running on a few streaming platforms, and Surviving Death on Netflix, as well as a number of other shows still streaming on various platforms. Visit his podcast channel at www.YouTube.com/@askprofessorparanormal and his media page at www.YouTube.com/@loydauerbach

In this episode, you will be able to:

1. Hear Loyd Auerbach share 45 years of experience investigating ghosts, hauntings, and psychic phenomena.

2. Learn about the scientific methods behind parapsychology and the ethical challenges in ghost hunting.

3. Hear about Loyd's most intriguing investigations and his thoughts on how media has influenced the paranormal field.

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Transcript

Welcome to Haunted History Chronicles, the podcast where we unravel the mysteries of the past one ghostly tale at a time.

I'm your host, Michelle, and I'm thrilled to be your guide on this Erie journey through the pages of history.

0:32

Picture this, a realm where the supernatural intertwines with the annals of time, where the echoes of the past reverberate through haunted corridors and forgotten landscapes.

That's the realm we invite you to explore with us.

Each episode will unearth stories, long buried secrets, dark folklore, tales of the macabre, and discuss parapsychology topics from ancient legends to more recent enigmas.

1:01

We're delving deep into locations and accounts all around the globe, with guests joining me along the way.

But this podcast is also about building a community of curious minds like you.

Join the podcast on social media, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram to share your own ghostly encounters, theories, and historical curiosities.

1:25

Feel free to share with friends and family.

The links are conveniently placed in the description for easy access.

So whether you're a history buff with a taste for the supernatural or a paranormal enthusiast with a thirst for knowledge, Haunted History Chronicles is your passport to the other side.

1:46

Get ready for a ride through the corridors of time where history and the supernatural converge, because every ghost has a story, and every story has a history.

And now let's introduce today's podcast.

Or guest welcome to this week's episode of Haunted History Chronicles where we explore the mysterious, the supernatural, and the stories that lie in between.

2:17

Today I am joined by none other than Lloyd Oerbach, a world renowned paranormal investigator and parapsychologist with over 45 years of experience.

In this special episode, we dive deep into his work with prestigious institutions like the Rhine Research Centre and the Office of Paranormal Investigations.

2:39

Lloyd will be sharing his unique insights on some of the most intriguing cases he's investigated, the ethics of modern ghost hunting, and how media has shaped the paranormal field.

Plus, we'll have the chance to discuss his latest books and courses.

2:57

Get ready for an episode exploring the science of the paranormal with my special guest, Lloyd Oerbach right here on Haunted History Chronicles.

Hi, Lloyd.

3:13

Thank you so much for joining me this evening.

Oh, thank you, Michelle.

Happy to be here.

Do you want to maybe just begin by sharing more about your personal background?

You know what led you to pursue a career in parapsychology?

Well, you know, it's, it's unlike what a lot of people expect.

3:32

It's not because of psychic experiences.

My dad worked for NBC, so I had ATV set in my room when I was a toddler basically, and grew up kind of in the TV industry.

There were many shows as I was growing up that were either syndicated, you know, some older shows or some newer ones.

3:52

Things like One Step Beyond and and Topper and The Twilight Zone.

Besides, of course, cartoons like Casper that introduced me to ideas of ghosts and psychic things.

And I was a little science geek in some respects, but also interested in folklore and mythology.

4:11

So really that the two things came together really well for me, both in comic books and science fiction and also various TV shows.

And in the 60s, there was ATV show here in the US called Dark Shadows, which featured, among other things, a vampire and a werewolf and, you know, other supernatural creatures.

4:30

And I got really interested in that, actually, after I started watching Star Trek and Stark Shadows mentioned parapsychology a few times.

So I got curious and went to the library and found the parapsychology books, strangely enough, in the Dewey Decimal System on the same shelves.

4:48

Vampires and werewolves.

So it was unfortunate for our field that that's what what happens.

But this led me to the science books by JB Ryan and JG Pratt and Gertrude Schmeidler and a number of others.

And I was just enamored by the science that was there, the laboratory work.

5:08

Initially, I had already read books by Hans Holtzer and others who did the ghost investigations, but it was really a science stuff that got me interested.

Started a parapsychology club in my high school thanks to a couple of teachers and we did experiments.

5:24

We didn't do any investigating.

It was not a ghost hunting club.

I studied anthropology in college and specifically looking at the at the belief in supernatural, magical, other types of phenomena and experience.

5:42

So technically it's the anthropology of religion, but it was really looking at supernatural beliefs which dovetailed with what we do when we look at from an anthropological perspective of psychic experiences.

I, I then found fortunately, a parapsychologist in Chicago who was teaching a mini course at another college.

6:03

I went to Northwestern and this was Mundelein College.

And so I was introduced to him and his course and another parapsychologist at from the Institute for Parapsychology, which eventually became the Ryan Research Center, told me at that point about the new graduate parapsychology program that had started started at John F Kennedy University in California.

6:24

So it really kind of things just kind of fell into timing wise, fell in one thing right after another to Take Me Out to get that master's in parapsychology and then back to New York to work in the, in the American Society for Psychical Research and then back out to JFK University to to teach and to also do some other work for them until the program ended.

6:48

And one of the things that I think is really important to to address is that the fact that there seems to be this wide range of definitions for the word parapsychology.

There was someone in the field.

Could you maybe define it for us?

Yeah, parapsychology is the the study of phenomenon of of consciousness that are outside the range of our normal sensory perceptions and experience.

7:18

So we look at the ability to get or abilities to perceive information without the use of the senses or logical or even intuitive inference.

We call that extrasensory perception.

We look at the idea that the mind can interact with matter and energy systems.

7:36

It's called psychokinesis.

You know, telekinesis is very limited term.

Psychokinesis is movement or action by the mind.

And we look at evidence for phenomena of experiences of that's of the idea of consciousness surviving the death of the body.

7:53

So everything we do in parapsychology, whether it's in the lab or in the field, has to do with consciousness, but consciousness extending beyond what we think normally of our minds.

Do you want to maybe tell us some of the the credible organizations that seriously study the phenomena?

8:14

And, and I will mention that I just launched a new website.

It's www.lloydauerbach.com and there is a resources page and I've been putting up information about those credible organizations on the resources page as it happens.

So I just finished doing that yesterday.

8:32

So of course, the oldest organization is in London, which is the Society for Psychical Research, which is still operating, as I'm sure you know, and still really doing great work, especially outreach to the public.

There is a institute, Meta Psychic in Paris, which is probably the second oldest still in existence because the American Society for Psychical Research no longer exists.

8:57

As such, the Duke Parapsychology Lab, Duke University Parapsychology Lab started in 1935.

This is the 90th anniversary of the lab and the Rhine Research Center, which is the legacy, the off campus legacy of the Duke lab is going to be doing a number of events both online and and in Durham, NC this year in 2025 since it is the 90th anniversary.

9:21

But the Rhine Research Center is a is another major center that's there that that folks can be aware of.

Probably the easiest for people to check though, when it comes to who is a parapsychologist would be the Parapsychological Association, which is just parapsych.org and there is a list of who the members are.

9:39

Now, not every parapsychologist legitimate is a member of the Parapsychological Association, but that's a great place to start by finding out who you were dealing with, if an organization is is actually credible or not.

I'm also connected to a couple of other organizations, of course.

9:56

I'm, I teach a parapsychology course through Atlantic University, which I'm actually starting this next week.

It's a graduate course, is part of the transpersonal psychology program that's there.

And I'm also the president of an organization called the Forever Family Foundation, which is a little different.

10:18

It is not a research organization.

It's an organization that supports the work of, of certified mediums.

We actually do scientific testing of mediums of evidential mediums, support them in the family grieving process, but also supporting the research on evidence for life after death.

10:35

That's there.

There are other organizations such there's an Australian Institute for Parapsychology.

There are there's the Institute of Neurotic Sciences, which does consciousness research.

Like I said, the resources page on my website now has all that information.

And it's I think it's important to kind of touch on, on these types of organizations because it's a bit of a minefield as to know where to go if someone is entering this for a particular reason and interest.

11:05

You can quickly be consumed and taken down so many different paths of information that just maybe isn't necessarily particularly helpful.

So knowing about these organisations, I think it's a really good starting point for anybody actually, whatever level of interest or experience they are coming into this subject to start to explore and to begin to understand a little bit better.

11:31

Right, right.

You know, and the the problem has been that there's been not really a number of good educational opportunities for people who want to come into the field.

And, and of course, then there's also the confusion with all the paranormal ghost hunting groups and things that they do, but they're John F Kennedy University's graduate program doesn't exist, hasn't existed since the late 80s, kind of closed down partly because of funding that had disappeared and also political issues in the university.

12:00

But there there's actually a new master's and PhD program that's starting up at a university or a school in Southern California, which is called the California Institute for Human Science.

So that's a brand new one.

12:16

Folks can look that up.

Jeffrey Mishlov is kind of who is a luminary in our field, has been running that.

There are other educational opportunities certainly in the US or anywhere in the world.

We have programs and courses for the Rhine Research Center, and we have an Education Center, and I'm one of the two main instructors for that.

12:38

We have certificate programs.

They're not academic the way people would think of them, but they're light academic, I think for folks who want to take them for a grade towards a certificate.

And of course, in the UK, there's a whole bunch of places, universities that are teaching either anomalous psychology or parapsychology.

12:55

And then there's the parapsychology specialization for psychology, pH DS at the University of Edinboro.

So there, there's actually kind of some mainstream stuff and you can find that again, I'll be listing those on my website at some point.

I just haven't, I'm still building the website.

13:12

But part of the problem is that there are so many books out there and there's been so much confusion, as you mentioned, about parapsychology over the decades.

I remember it.

It actually really started in the 60s and 70s with all sorts of people publishing books on parapsychology that had nothing to do with parapsychology or were psychics calling themselves parapsychologists.

13:33

And it continues today with some of the ghost hunters who who know nothing about the fields, calling themselves parapsychologists.

And again, this is where I think it's really important to understand some of these organizations that you've mentioned and you've touched them on, you know, some of which you hold positions at like the University of Atlanta and the Rhine Research Center, etcetera.

13:54

You know, because these are places, these are organizations that are really integral in my opinion, to advancing parapsychological research, but also really advocating for education and bringing people into this field and it being something credible.

14:15

And I think that can sometimes, again, just get lost a little bit.

There are many different pathways for which you can explore certain other fields in science, for example.

But parapsychology doesn't get the same spotlight, I think, unfortunately, as some of these others.

14:32

So I think it's really important to highlight the work that these very incredible institutions, organizations have been doing for years in terms of really highlighting and advocating for research and for education.

And I don't know if you want to go into that a little bit further in terms of the types of things that they do and why they're so important.

14:54

Well, you know, most of the organizations what like the the SPR and the Ryan Center are really as much about education as they are about research.

And that's been the case I think all along for most organizations.

Now, of course there are, there are labs or folks that specialize in laboratory research, but you know, for folks who are not wanting to take a course, we're not not necessarily finding what they're looking for.

15:20

You know, one of the easiest places to find information would be on something like Amazon Books.

But there are two problems #1 there's a lot of books written by people who don't know what they're talking about, especially today since people can self publish, which is why I always tell people to check out the author, find out their background.

15:39

If you see a book that's interesting, look, actually you can go to the Parapsychological Association's website, look at the membership list, and look for books by those people.

Look for people who are listed on the SI Encyclopedia for for the Society for Psychical Research.

15:55

It's a great resource.

Actually.

It's a wonderful resource for for anyone who wants to learn about what the field is doing both in the lab and outside the lab and what we've done historically.

This is a free encyclopedia that the SPR has been building it.

It's just an incredibly good place to start your education in parapsychology.

16:15

I always, I have many links to many articles in there for my students at the Rhine Center when we do our classes.

In fact, the book thing is a problem today.

I'm finding though, that, you know, there's this whole, I know it's also popular in the UK, but here in the States, the whole idea of the ghost hunting world, the paranormal community, so-called paranormal community.

16:40

Too many folks get into the investigation stuff because they watch TV shows which are not educational.

No matter what people think, reality TV is not real.

But they, they don't seem to read.

I mean, they'll read books by the celebrity ghost hunters on television shows, but they don't seem to read.

16:58

And I, I think this is a problem just generally, even though book sales in general are up, it's really interesting that people are looking towards the Internet more for short, obviously short pieces for YouTube, short videos, things like that, rather than actually picking up a book and going through it.

17:20

But there's plenty of opportunity for people to learn.

They just have to be critical of and careful of the sources they're looking at.

One, just just a quick mention, Wikipedia has a significant bias against our field and a significant, it's been proven it's a significant bias against alternative health methods, against Ufology, against anything that that they call on the fringe or pseudoscience.

17:46

So Wikipedia is not a good source.

Of course, high school, I know several high school teachers and they do not allow their students to cite Wikipedia for anything because of the nature of that platform.

But there are, like I said, there's plenty of good source material out that's for free on the Internet.

18:05

And I'm trying to pull, pull it all together, a lot of it together on my new website.

So there's stuff that's up there now.

And as president of the, you know, the board of directors at the Ryan Research Centre now, how would you say personally that, you know, your works contributed to that, to this broader understanding of parapsychology as we've been talking about?

18:28

The Ryan Centre does have outreach and while we're having a problem right now with our video platform, the Rhine has sponsored a number of like a large number of, of lectures that have been recorded.

Once we get the platform back up in the next couple of months, there'll be hundreds of videos available.

18:47

I lecture for the Rhine every once in a while.

Just I did a lecture recently on my other, my other career path as a mentalist.

I talked about mentalism, magic and, and parapsychology and the history of those.

But for me personally, you know, I've, I've been connected to, in a couple of ways to different topics in parapsychology for years.

19:07

I'm like the ghost guy focusing on everybody thinks that all my focus is on investigations.

In actuality, when I came into this field and started working in the field, I was more interested in investigations and lab work.

So I didn't go to a lab to start working, but I've been involved in some of that.

19:26

But my focus actually was getting information out to the public.

My family's background in media, it's not just my father.

I had an uncle who was a director, another uncle was a newscaster for radio station in New York.

And, and actually both of my brothers are involved in some way in the media.

19:42

So I, I really have been trying to and working towards getting an understanding to the general public of what parapsychology is, the implications of our field, the excitement we have about some of what we found and also and people's investigations as well.

20:01

So my focus has been as an educator more than an investigator, a disseminator of information.

One of the reasons I do podcasts like this all the time.

I hardly ever turn any down so I can actually get this information out to people.

But the Rhine Center itself is an educational organization.

20:21

It's it's a research or it's, it's many things.

For many people, and we're trying as much as possible to expand that over the next couple of years.

So it it really is, it's the same with most of the other organizations.

There's really an attempt the the SPR is doing a really great process of getting educational information out to the public as well.

20:43

The problem is reaching the general public and not just the spokes who are specifically interested in the paranormal.

Yeah, it's the, it's the difficulty, it's the dilemma, isn't it?

Because there's just so much other stuff to wade through.

But this is this is again, where it's so fascinating and important, I think, to speak to people like yourself who just live and breathe this field because you're able to share this interest, the, the research, the science, really talk about the meaty topics around it, the fascinating things that are going on within the field, but also break down so many of the, the miscommunications and misunderstandings around the field too, which just doesn't happen enough in my opinion.

21:26

So it's great to be able to have yourself come onto the podcast to help to, to do that tonight.

So, yeah, it's it's it's fascinating and brilliant to be able to talk about the work that you're doing and the institutions that you're part of as part of that discussion.

21:43

Thank you.

You know, I'm, I'm fortunately also really so interested because of my family's media background in popular media and popular literature and still read comic books.

It it's really helped me a lot.

You know, one of the things I learned early on, I try to teach, been trying to teach students that I've had over the years.

22:03

And actually, I'll be putting out a book this year called Presenting the Paranormal to the Public, which will have some, some pieces of this as well as some other practical advice that I've gotten over the years that I've I've learned it.

It's important when you're trying to talk to people in the general public, people who have not looked into the subject at all, to give them something to hang on to.

22:25

And contrasting with popular movies and television shows and, and the things like that really helps the folks.

It's really interesting that years of years and years ago going to comic book conventions and other places, even as a, even just as a, an attendee, it was really interesting to talk to other comic book fans because I didn't have to change my language or explanations at all.

22:50

If they were reading X-Men comics or a lot of some DC Comics or any, or Marvel Comics, they already knew everything I was talking about.

You know, they, they didn't know that it was real necessarily, but it was easy to talk to them about it.

Star Wars has helped immensely and kind of giving examples of how the Force can be used it just simply, even though that's not the real thing.

23:15

Contrasting the popular images with and even folklore with what parapsychology does helps a lot in getting people to understand and to really get into the subject to really kind of look into it a little bit more.

23:32

Absolutely, I agree with you.

I mean, for me that bridge with folklore and history and parapsychology is, is something that has always fascinated me and certainly has been the route into looking further and further into the field from that perspective.

23:50

I think it's it's whatever it is that is the angle for you that helps you to make and bridge that gap, which is the the fascinating way in I think for a lot of people.

Then who start to take it a little bit more seriously and beyond, like you mentioned earlier the the TV shows and really want to kind of start to understand and dig deeper, which again for me is the exciting part I think.

24:12

Yeah, For me personally, Ghostbusters, the original Ghostbusters was was like the key step for a lot of this.

I have been working with, you know, media people calling all the time.

I have recollection when I was working in New York at the ASPR of reporters around Halloween before Ghostbusters saying, can you take us to a house like the Amityville one where things are flying around?

24:33

And, you know, it's just the fact that a reporter even asked that question was somewhat idiotic.

And my response always was, if, if we could do that, do you think that we would be underfunded?

So, But when Ghostbusters came out, all reporters were asking, we know it's not like that.

24:53

So what is it really like?

And that's the question we want.

You know, that's a great question for anyone to ask us from the the general media, the mainstream media, or even some of the other kind of other types of shows, because it really opens up.

People have a handle.

25:09

The handle was Ghostbusters.

And now they're told, well, here, let's take that's really interesting, but let's find out what it's really like.

And that really works for us.

Absolutely.

And again, you know, some of the the other roles that you hold as part of this are really fascinating.

25:25

I mean, there are a lot of different, different hats and organizations that you juggle.

I don't know how you managed to fit it all in to be honest, Lloyd.

But you know, one of the the other areas that sound really fascinating is the the Office of Paranormal Investigations.

Do you want to maybe just tell us more about the work that you do there and the mission that you have there?

25:47

Sure, we had.

We had when we started it in 1989, we had grander ideas of what it could be at some point.

But the original reason we started something called the Office of Paranormal Investigations, myself and a guy named Chris Chacon, was because for the most part, we were running investigations.

26:09

We're getting calls to John F Kennedy University's parapsychology program.

The program was now over and we needed some place for, to be able to let people know that they could call and, and we could try to help them with anything going on in their homes or businesses.

26:25

And we had for for many, many years, we actually had a, an, an actual answering service.

So we had people answering the phones for that.

I ended up training a few of them to for certain types of responses and use that as a platform to bring other people and other investigators in as much as possible.

26:48

Over the years, it's really become a network, not a not an actual office.

We had hoped to actually have an office that time, but became an actual network.

So I do have, because I've had a number of students started off originally with investigators who had been graduate students at John F Kennedy University, many of whom had moved to other areas.

27:09

I connected with other researchers or other investigators who were really well versed in parapsychology.

There are actually a number of them who are not technically parapsychologists who are exceedingly knowledgeable of the field, even though they're not calling themselves.

27:27

In fact, the fact that they don't call themselves parapsychologists, I think is a good thing.

So and then we have grown because the network has grown because of my students over the years of various courses that I've taught.

One was a local organization here that I taught in the 2000s through about 2018, including some distance learning courses.

27:47

So I had people in other parts of the country as well and now through the Rhine courses.

So we have certificate programs, students who take my investigations class end up as part of the OPI Network.

And we are slowly but surely building an OPI network website, which will end up having a number of these investigators in different parts of the US and elsewhere for people who are are willing to be listed.

28:12

So that folks know that there are some people they can contact or an organization they can start with to get some legitimate understanding of what might be going on in their homes and their businesses to get help.

We can't help everyone in person.

28:29

There's not enough investigators, trained investigators everywhere.

And so a lot of times we'll try to help via distance as much as possible.

But we're still, you know, OPI still sort of exists.

It exists as a network these days.

The other really fascinating roles that I think you hold is the, you know, the president of the The Forever Family Foundation.

28:51

Again, do you want to maybe just talk a little bit about the work that you do there and how it intersects with your work within parapsychology?

Well, first, first I'll say, you know, I'm fortunate that both the, the president of the Rhine Board, which is more active than the than my, my role as president of the Forever Family Foundation doesn't take as much time as people often think.

29:12

So the Forever Family Foundation is a nonprofit, all volunteer organization.

So our executive director, the vice president so and founder Bob Ginsberg, who is one of the founders of the organization who was founded in 2005, 2004 by a couple, it was Bob and his wife.

29:34

They founded it because they had lost their daughter in a car crash and through a weird chain of events.

I mean, they were grieving heavily and through a weird chain of events, a neighbor had a session with a medium and that medium got messages from Bob and Fran's daughter.

29:56

And when presented to Fran, Fran was very excited about it.

Bob was a skeptic to start with and he, he, they ended up going to that medium over time.

Bob was absolutely convinced that what he was seeing, what he was getting was stuff that could the medium could not possibly have known was providing him with evidence.

30:15

And then other mediums provided the same.

They got together with some other couples that also lost kids.

They started this foundation as a nonprofit because they found that working with that medium really helped their grief enormously.

And it wasn't like they were going every week at all.

30:33

I mean, that's kind of the stereotype of the phony medium getting people to come in every week and just taking them for money.

That's not what was happening.

They contacted some researchers.

They worked out a way to test and certify the mediums, which still we still do to this day to make sure that they were evident.

30:53

In other words, providing real evidence and not just platitudes or generalities or cold reading any of that.

And the mediums are also were kind of vetted in some respects for their background.

They are interviewed by another medium, a couple of mediums actually, where and by by the folks in the foundation to make sure their ethics are in in place.

31:14

And they must to even be certified and stay certified.

You have to volunteer for the organization.

And that means doing something for nothing, spending some time doing something which not which some folks just won't do.

And we we have to be suspicious of that.

Most of the meetings we have are always doing it, you know, for the work basically to help people.

31:35

So my work role as president is kind of oversee things.

And in some respects I'm because the executive director does so much.

I'm somewhat sort of a figurehead, but because we are also supporting the research that is done, an investigation of phenomena and experiences that suggest or support consciousness surviving death.

31:58

I mean, mediumship is one of them.

Another one would be the apparitions investigations, investigations idea where there seems to be a conscious entity.

Another one is the reincarnation research with children who remember previous lives.

In fact, the University of Virginia's Division of Perceptual Studies, which is listed on my resources page, is another great, incredible resource to go to, to look at the actual scientific research that's been done over the last 60 some odd years, on children who remember previous lives, on mediumship, on apparitions, out of body experiences, all of that.

32:35

They're actually in the medical school.

That's that's where the researchers actually are.

And they have a lot of really free, incredible free resources on their page, their publications page as well.

So really the foundation is out there to support people who are grieving, to support and disseminate information about research in this area, to work with other organizations where possible.

33:02

And we've run currently four regular grief retreats for about 50 people, including in two in Connecticut, one in Florida, one in California.

33:18

Every year we're doing an extra 1 for parents who have lost children specifically, but those include mediums.

It also includes at least one researcher and also a grief counselor who does presentations on that.

And I've, I am involved in the one here in California.

33:35

And it's just been amazing and gratifying to see the transformation of people from when they come to when they leave over that weekend.

We're hoping to expand some of the things we do there as well.

That's one of the, one of the major pieces we do.

33:51

And by the way, I will say that the foundation makes 0 money.

There's no profit made on those grief retreats at all.

They're not cheap because people have, we have to, we have a lot of, they're kind of all inclusive with hotel room and all that stuff.

But they still are, are really relevant.

34:08

And we're hoping to do something in the UK at some point.

We we wouldn't really want to expand out a little bit further.

I was just going to say it's something that I think you can see a real place for outside of the US.

It would be something like that here.

34:24

And I think, you know, you see the same common threads through so many of the, the different organisations that you are part of.

You know, you just see, you see something where yes, there is an educational element of, of trying to disseminate information, but also you can see ethics, you can see integrity here.

34:46

And I, and I think this particular role with the foundation, I think really does highlight that this is about providing a, a service, providing something that is supportive, that can be so transformative for people through that process of grief in a way that sadly, we also see within the paranormal field.

35:06

People who are in that position can be somewhat taken for granted at times with various people that come in and out of their lives who purport to have certain gifts or to have certain things that they can do or say.

And here again, you have something that is just much more credible as a as a foundation that isn't for profit is simply about supporting families, which again highlights some of those threads that we've been Speaking of so far in in our podcast chat.

35:36

Yeah.

And you know, what's interesting is that there have been some studies in the last few years by clinicians in psychology looking at whether or not working with mediums or having mediums come in is a positive benefit.

And it, the, the clinical studies all show that it is that there is a positive benefit for in, in grief reduction, though the best pairing is a grief counselor and a medium, it seems.

36:04

So, you know, just putting that out there too.

Unfortunately, too many psychologists and folks in the grief world are, you know, like they're hands off on anything paranormal.

And part of that is because there's an incredible bias against parapsychology in the psychology world, as opposed to other fields of science, which is really interesting in itself.

36:25

What would you personally say then is, you know, some of the, the significant changes that you've seen over the last few decades when it comes to education and helping to train the next generation of parapsychologists?

What would you see of what would you say has been some of those shifts during that time in terms of, of handling some of the the the aspects that we've been talking about within this field?

36:51

Well, you know, sadly it's not been as much as I would like, although things have been much better since we've been able to.

You know, we and other organizations have been able to do online courses as well.

But, you know, one of the shifts is that I think folks in the field itself, the researchers, laboratory research, have recognized the importance of outreach to the public.

37:14

This is something that was not the case when I first got into the field.

It was, you know, the, the main person who was out there, at least in the US was JB Ryan only because he became famous in the 30s, forties and 50s.

There were, you know, then, then there were the people who were the, the ghost hunter types like Hans Holter, who was sort of helping, but not really.

37:36

But over time, it's been really clear that a number of folks in my field, my, my older colleagues have recognized the importance of really getting out or putting these things out towards the public in general, the educational opportunities.

There have been some other organization, other universities in the US that have tried.

37:55

Unfortunately, again, because of bias, there have been some problems.

Atlantic University actually tried to do a full on parapsychology master's program, but the accrediting body was incredibly, how do I put this?

They blocked it.

38:12

They basically said it was too controversial and they didn't want to get involved.

And that in itself shows really bad judgement considering the fact that there's some other really bizarre and always have been, you know, degree programs out there in other areas, in the arts especially.

38:28

So we have seen here in the US, we've seen more of an attempt to get out there.

Part of it, interestingly enough, is because parapsychologists have recognized that due to the rise of the Organized Skeptics Committee for Scientific Investigation, the claims of the paranormal, which is now the Center for, for Scientific inquiry.

38:50

They, you know, got started in the 70s thanks to the amazing Randy.

And they have created an, an atmosphere in the US academia of negativity.

Although their influence has been waning, thankfully.

But because of the the statements that they were making, which were absolutely uninformed and very much belief based about our field, they still make these statements.

39:18

Some of them still make these statements.

We've had to push back and that pushback has allowed us to get the word out a lot more and attempt to set up more educational opportunities.

But I, I really think that since we've been able to go online with courses and honestly, the pandemic, the COVID pandemic really helped a lot.

39:42

Our at the Rhine Education Center, our attendance and popularity more than doubled because of that.

And now it's because people are are used to taking online courses.

You know, Zoom is a big isn't just an easy thing for people.

39:58

And we're seeing that in other areas.

One of my other colleagues, Nancy Zingroni, offers a massive online course, free course every year.

That's another one of the resources that's listed on my web page.

So there there's just more opportunity.

40:15

The SPR has been expanding again.

The web has allowed us to expand out, on the other hand.

The web has also allowed all the craziness to expand out, and now we're fighting that instead of fighting the skeptics.

So just to kind of come back to something that we've briefly touched on before when it comes to, like you said, wading through some of the the other stuff that is out there that makes it difficult to kind of get to some of the more serious research and, and work that's taking place.

40:46

What would you, what would you say in your opinion is some of the most commonly misunderstood aspects of parapsychology?

You know, both, both from the position of enthusiasts or skeptics.

What would you say are some of the most common misunderstandings that they have when they approach the topic?

41:06

Well, I, I think there's certainly for the enthusiasts, let's say the, the folks who are more interested in the paranormal, ghost hunting, that sort of stuff, that phenomena, the reality shows have created a misconception that that parapsychology is only laboratory work and has nothing to do with going out and doing paranormal investigations.

41:32

Somebody reports an apparition or haunting or poltergeist parapsychologist have nothing to do with that.

And that is actually at the root, at the very root and, and starting point of our field was investigating things in the field.

The SPR got started because of the rise of spiritualism.

41:50

So that's one major piece that was that's still being presented to people.

The other on the other side, on the skeptic side, we're still seeing articles published that say, you know, this research is completely false or it's not good because ESP is impossible, because these things are impossible.

42:14

There was actually an article by a couple of psychologists that was published on the Skeptical Enquirer's website a couple of years ago, a few years ago.

And they admitted at the very front, they, they said that, you know, we're going to explain why, why ESP violates the laws of physics.

42:31

And they admitted in the beginning of the article that they didn't bother looking at the data because ESP is impossible.

So basically, you're saying ESP is impossible, so why look at the research?

And that's an incredibly unscientific attitude.

They then proceeded to misuse the laws of physics.

42:48

In fact, they were taken to task by another skeptic who explained how they misunderstood the laws of physics and that ESP was possible under the laws of physics, though he didn't really think it existed.

So we see the skeptics basically putting out the idea that there's nothing to the research.

43:07

It's bad research.

The researchers don't know what they're doing because the phenomena is impossible.

That's on one side.

On the other, we're seeing that we don't know anything about ghosts and hauntings and poltergeists in our field, in parapsychology per SE, because it has nothing to do with laboratory research.

43:24

When in fact you can't have an experience of a ghost or a haunting or poltergeist without extrasensory perception and psychokinesis.

You can't do that.

You can't experience anything.

So there's incredible time in all ways.

43:40

We are today still fighting the skeptics more than trying to get good information out for the enthusiasts to kind of counter what they see on TV.

But for the skeptics, we're having to directly head on.

43:57

Folks in our field are having to to kind of go head to head with them on the research that's there.

Yeah.

And I think the, the, the documentation that the article that you just mentioned is such a good example of that because you've got something that's been written solely from the perspective of I don't believe this.

44:15

And I'm looking to confirm the opinion that I've stated from the get go, which as you said, is just not how you approach anything when it comes to any type of scientific inquiry.

So it's from the, from the get go, you can see the bias and how that's shaped and in influence the way that that article then has subsequently been researched and put together, which again, is something that is very difficult to combat.

44:41

You know, you have to really do so in a way that targets the, the falsehoods, you know, the, the really go at it from that science perspective to tease apart why it is that it's inaccurate.

But you know, for a skeptic from, you know, someone who has that mindset, it's very difficult to shake someone's beliefs and thoughts.

45:03

And, and that's the, that's the premises they're starting from, which makes that difficult.

So yeah, I don't envy you on that front in terms of having to, to really tackle the, the, the problems that that then poses for you as someone within this field.

45:19

Because that's it's hard to shake anybody when they have that complete 100% world view on something that is is hard to shift, hard, hard to move at all.

Exactly.

And, and in reality, unfortunately, these, that organization, the skeptics, the organized skeptics change the word, the meaning of the word skeptic.

45:40

I mean, we like skeptics.

We like people who are asking questions and doubting and may never make up their mind.

There's they're what one of my late colleagues called pseudo skeptics, cynics, debunkers.

They, they disbelieve and their disbelief is as much faith as the true believers who believe everything.

46:01

So it's, it's just as strong in that sense.

You really can't fight that.

No, absolutely.

I think you described that really well.

So just kind of changing tax ever so tact ever so slightly, you know, when it comes to the work that you've done.

46:17

Because again, I think this is rooted in part of the answer that you just gave, which is that, you know, for those who believe that parapsychology and those who work in the field are purely coming at this from a laboratory perspective, working in the lab, not stepping outside and experiencing these things first hand.

46:37

You know, you yourself have investigated and experienced cases for a number of years.

You've written about these cases, you've talked about these cases for a number of years.

You know, just kind of thinking about the work that you've done out in the field, what would you say are some of the the more compelling cases that you've investigated as part of of the work that you've done there and, and how that's revealed things in terms of the nature of paranormal phenomena for you?

47:08

So I've had a couple of really interesting turning point cases over the years when I first got into the field.

Actually, my first investigation happened as a grad student.

And while I I sort of experienced something, it really wasn't related to the phenomenon necessarily.

47:27

That was more than that was 45 years ago.

That's a little bit more than that.

But over the years and when I started really doing investigations, I would occasionally do an investigation in Westchester County, New York when I was living in there and doing work at the ASPR.

47:44

There was one case which was truly bizarre, which indicated the idea of what people call residual hauntings.

And I, I had no problem.

I mean, in some respects, because of the the literature I'd read and the parapsychologist who taught our courses at JFK and the other folks in the field that I'd met.

48:03

I had no problem in accepting this phenomena that especially that phenomena, the idea that information gets imprinted in the environment.

We pick it up.

Most of the time people talk about hauntings as being really negative.

This was a case of a couple that had moved into a house that was was less than six years old in a development that was less than six years old.

48:22

And they were woken up every night by the sounds of two people making love in the next room, next bedroom, and there was nobody there.

And it all kind of came together that it connected directly to the previous owners who verified some things about the pattern that they had apparently left behind in this house.

48:46

It was a really interesting case that truly showed something that I, I really been wondering about, which was how do, how do dead people leave impressions behind?

Because people always talk about hauntings as, you know, connected to somebody who died or a battle or something like that.

49:05

And really it didn't make sense to me.

This made sense and talking to the research director, Carlos Osis at the ASPR and the psychic we psychic and medium we were working with and research, Alex Tanis kind of brought it all together that living people leave impressions behind.

49:21

Living people leave emotions behind.

I mean, people go house hunting or apartment hunting can sort of feel the vibe of the people who live there.

And this is all information in the environment.

And this requires us to be a little bit psychic or something in the environment affecting us.

49:37

So that was kind of a, a real major eye opener for me in in my work here in California, I had one apparition case, which was not a negative.

In fact, it was a mother calling her son had been apparently talking to this ghost for a year and a half after they moved in.

49:54

But the thing was that the mother had seen the the woman, the apparition, her husband had seen the apparition, her mother when visiting had seen the apparition since they moved in.

And none of them were talking to each other about it.

It was only until once their 12 year old son mentioned something and started talking about his experiences with her that she got really curious.

50:14

And it was a a really interesting experience from an investigator's perspective.

Not only because the amount of information of personal history, which I had to verify by tracking down the the woman, the ghosts only living relative, which was difficult to do.

50:35

He verified those stories.

So there was no way this kid could have known and responses we got in a conversation with the boy who was translating more or less for the he was almost acting as a medium for the for the apparition was sitting in the was in the room with us that matched ideas of apparitions from the early SPR researchers that has kind of continued one model that has continued over time.

51:04

And there's no way this kid could have gotten access to that at the time the book, there were no books out there that he could have in his school library or the Public Library.

I checked that he could have found this information in.

So that was a really interesting case that that I've that's been written up.

51:21

Leslie Kane Kean has a book called Surviving Death, and I wrote that's the most extensive write up of that case that I've actually done.

So there's a lot of good information.

And and that case just continued on afterwards.

They weren't looking for publicity.

51:36

There was no motivation.

There were a lot of other factors that kind of took this out of they're faking it, they're making it up.

There's some psychology here, so many other things.

So it really kind of put me in the mindset that, yeah, you know, I guess there is not just residual hauntings.

51:52

There's also apparitions.

And I've been around people who could do PK psychokinesis, involved in a couple of really interesting poltergeist cases.

So that element of things also has been there.

And I've been very fortunate to work with or around some really, really good psychics and mediums over the years.

52:17

Early on, working at the American Society for Psychical Research and getting to know Alex Tanis, who was a phenomenal psychic, we were doing research there with him on Out of Body Experience, but he was actually doing a lot of other things, including consulting with law enforcement.

52:33

And in fact, when I was working at the ASPR, someone from every time Alex was in town, which was usually every other week, someone from New York Police Department, Boston Police Department, Philadelphia Police Department or the FBI would show up to consult with him.

So no matter how many times skeptics say the cops don't use psychics, they do.

52:52

They just don't talk about it and they use them in different ways than people typically expect to.

I worked for on several cases long term.

I've been involved in a couple of locations here in the Bay Area for several years.

53:08

I worked in, worked investigating or working with a restaurant called the Banta Inn, which is about an hour and a half east of San Francisco.

And not only were they seeing the apparition of of the former owner, bar manager, bartender, but physical activity was actually pretty common.

53:26

And I witnessed a lot of physical activity there.

I always check in for fraud.

That's my magic background.

And then the Moss Beach Distillery restaurant, which is South of San Francisco, is another one.

I've had a lot of experience and have personal experiences with that apparition as well.

53:43

And more recently over time, the USS Hornet aircraft carrier museum.

There's a whole bunch of places that have been very impactful for me, but I also will say that I've had some really interesting cases that had normal explanations that would be considered unusual normal explanations, and those have been really good cases as well.

54:03

That's an important thing for us.

And you know, as part of that, obviously you've recently brought out the second edition of a paranormal case book, which is just filled with fascinating accounts, some of which you've you've just touched upon.

54:20

Now, do you want to maybe just give a little bit more about what people could expect from that book?

And maybe the significance, the impact that you think the the book brings in terms of, again, just raising the awareness of cases like you have investigated and the approach and the outcomes from the cases that you've investigated.

54:42

Maybe touching on some of that in terms of what what you think people would expect to find if they pick up your book.

Sure.

So, so that book, and I'm going to be working on a second volume to war cases.

I pulled cases from, you know, my first, you know, 30 years in the field for that.

55:03

The case that I just talked about with the apparition, which it's called Lois of Livermore, that is written up in Surviving death, although I'll be having a form of that in the next edition too.

But the current version of a paranormal case book has probably the most in depth write up of the Moss Beach distillery investigation that I've ever done up to a point up to a particular year.

55:28

The USS Hornet early investigations, you know, that's a very famous aircraft carrier, haunted aircraft carrier here now these days in the US and actually around the world.

People come to visit there.

And that's again, I did a extensive write up of the Hornet for that book and the Banta ends in that book as well as I just mentioned.

55:49

But the other cases are more residential, you know, family cases, most of them, and there's a range of them.

There's a couple of poltergeist cases.

There is the, the residual haunting case I just mentioned before.

There are a a few cases that a couple in particular that illustrate what parapsychologists need to do or any investigative needs to do to look for normal explanations.

56:15

Even if those normal explanations are unusual.

There's a lot of weird stuff going on in the world that has that does have normal explanations.

That's the thing, because people misinterpret or misunderstand what's actually happening in their homes.

So there's you can see from this book how a parapsychologist investigates these cases or the parapsychological approach versus what you see on TV for ghost hunting.

56:43

And it is different, for example, there is one case in there where I did sit in the dark, but it ended up being a squirrel and that that there was a reason why I sat in the dark for that one.

We don't we don't do work in the dark.

And there's there are good reasons for that.

56:59

And it's very clear from the book why that is in the various cases that are there.

Also, one things that that folks will get really the idea of is how important interviewing witnesses happens to be to understanding what's actually going on too much.

57:20

What I see with the ghost hunting groups and what's certainly on TV is maybe they talk to one person at the public locations or they just maybe do a little research online.

But what I've seen for ghost hunting groups in general is they'll often kick the people out of the house.

Makes no sense.

57:37

They will.

They focus on their technology and equipment and you're not going to find a lot of that in my book.

You know, people have been doing in our field, have been doing investigations since actually since before the SPRI.

Don't think most people know that Charles Dickens did investigations.

57:53

So it's been going on a long time and we didn't have the tech.

So I think you'll get a real feel for an approach that is different than what you'd expect reading or looking at all the ghost hunting stuff that's out there.

58:09

I also have at the front of the book very lengthy frequently asked questions piece on the phenomena.

You will find that now on my website.

It's the FAQ on my website, lloydauerbach.com.

But there's also a piece at the end where I've kind of done a self interview about my own experiences in the field and my background.

58:28

There's also the resources list is in there.

So there's a lot of good information in there.

It is available as a Kindle book.

It's available as a paperback.

I've had people after me to do an audio book.

I don't know if I'm going to get to that, but because I'm working on these other two books this year as well.

58:49

But hopefully one of the things I think you'll also find is I've hopefully told the stories in an entertaining fashion so you will not be bored.

But I think it's incredible because I think it touches on some of some things that are really important that you've mentioned as part of that kind of explanation of what you, you expect people to kind of hopefully pick up from the book, which is this it, it shows the scientific rigour it it details why these are important.

59:17

And it shows the approach that you have and, you know, speaking with other parapsychologists and, and the rabbit holes that they can find themselves going down in terms of researching specific animal sounds to try and find an explanation or to look into what it is that could be happening that is being observed.

59:37

You know, fox sounds, squirrel sounds, you know, it's surprising the the places that people have to go to in order to be really thorough when investigating and examining what's happening.

And this is, you know, it can be something simple, like you said, of not having the lights turned off.

59:55

You know the purpose of having the lights on is to is so clearly evident when you start to understand how that deprivation of of.

Having your sight incapacitated, the impact that that has on the mind and therefore the influence that that can have in terms of paranormal type experiences.

1:00:17

And so it it's just a very, very thorough way of exploring this field from this scientific rigor.

And again, as you know, we've touched upon through our through our chat, you know, TV shows coverage of this don't show that it's something that's that's often missing.

1:00:37

And it's important to be able to balance what we see happening in these mainstream entertainment experiences with what actually is rooted in science and the purpose and the reason for doing it to for doing that.

Because it's a, it's the missing link, I think in really, again, bridging that gap between between the two worlds, if you like.

1:01:01

Yeah.

And you know, basically one of the things that is important for folks to to recognize too, is that when you're in a laboratory, you can control the environment.

Well, that's the whole goal of, of doing laboratory research is to eliminate all the other possibilities.

When you're in the field doing investigations, you know, we can't use the scientific method the same way you would use in a laboratory.

1:01:24

We have to apply science.

So really investigations are applied science.

Applying what?

What the science itself, the laboratory research, the rigorous investigations, all of that has learned.

We can apply some of those methods when we're doing the investigation, but we also have to, as part of this, start out by doing what you do in a laboratory, which is eliminating every other possible source of mistaken a conclusion, contamination, all those things.

1:01:59

So, you know, you mentioned turning off the lights.

There's been several, you know, many psychological studies showing how people's perceptions are screwy, more or less, when the lights are out.

As someone in the psychic, entertainment and mentalism world, I've run seances you know for for fun and for fun and profit for entertainment.

1:02:22

And you can do so much more in the dark with next to nothing to scare people, convince them that something is happening.

And I'm talking about next to nothing.

You even just suggestion will do that.

We are not good observers in the dark.

But beyond that, the main reason to not investigate in the dark is knowing what happened before.

1:02:45

In other words, knowing the history, knowing the science.

And the science includes looking at the experiences people have and the patterns of those experiences.

And a very, very, very tiny percentage of reported cases of apparitions and hauntings and almost none of poltergeist activity have happened in the in the dark.

1:03:06

Almost all of them happen with the lights on, whether they're night time or morning or during the daytime.

In fact, most apparition experiences happen during the day or during with the lights on.

So if you're trying to connect with a ghost, an apparition, why are in the world would you turn the lights out if almost all the experiences in the past that have been reported and studied have happened with lights on?

1:03:30

It's for television.

That's the reason why you do that.

Yeah, it's the difference between, again, that scientific rigor and simply that the jump scare effect, which again, as you touched upon just there is so easily something that you can create when you deprive people of the things that help them to feel safe, that help them to feel like they're connecting with their environment.

1:03:54

And that's also something that, you know, is is able to transcend through a television screen.

You know, if you darken it, if you make it seem more sinister, of course, again, it just, it heightens suggestion and all of those other things, which again, it just takes us away from some of the scientific principles that you are very much advocating for and that parapsychologists advocate for in terms of this scientific approach in terms of, of investigating hauntings and experiences.

1:04:27

And like, and I think again, the, the other important aspect here is it's not just about investigating them, but part of what you're doing is obviously highlighting the need and putting that out there in terms of, of the educational aspect of why it's so important to have this scientific principle at the heart of everything that you're doing.

1:04:49

Again, to to discern between the two things that people are bombarded with.

I think in terms of experiences of what the the world of parapsychology is.

Yeah, You know, there were, There were back shortly after the pandemic, I think it was in 2021.

1:05:06

There were a couple of real estate companies, you know, larger ones here in the States that did surveys because Realtors were reporting that during the lockdown, people were reporting to their Realtors, which sold them the property or, or the renting agency, that they thought their place was haunted in a greater number than they had ever seen before.

1:05:30

And so they did surveys and found that if it there was an age difference, the older you were, the less likely you were to, to conclude that your place was haunted for some for whatever reason.

But the survey showed that they were a huge it was a huge upswing of people who thought their house was haunted or apartment was haunted.

1:05:47

And the Realtors thinking about this, the organizations rightly concluded it was because people had never really been in their homes for 24 hours a day for weeks on end, not able to go anywhere.

And most people are not aware normally of the sounds the house makes when the temperature changes outside house settling noises or other things that can happen in your home.

1:06:13

And if you are suddenly bombarded with things that are unusual, you know, you'll start looking on the Internet and find that there's all these ghost hunting sites that say, yeah, these are signs your house has haunted.

So it, it's really it, it of course, dropped off after the pandemic was over.

1:06:29

But it's really been interesting how people tend not to think about the normal explanations.

They will often go to the to the paranormal ones or some unusual explanation first.

And then some people are unwilling to, to actually accept that there's an explanation.

1:06:48

I've had cases where we've been able to explain the phenomena that they thought they were experiencing and they didn't buy it.

They didn't believe it even if we showed it to them.

And in fact, one of my colleagues years ago, he was an investigator in Texas, he had a case where a woman was experiencing all sorts of noises in the walls of her home.

1:07:05

And it turned out to be a possum that was in the walls.

And he actually showed her they, they, I mean, they actually found the possum.

She, she still believed it was something demonic or paranormal, even after all the phenomena stopped.

I guess the the possum was possessed or something.

1:07:25

Some of what we see now in terms of shows that are out there, this is where I think some of that has, I think genuine real concerning aspects because you can see how that has very much changed and, and made certain subjects within the paranormal field more popular.

1:07:48

And you see these trends over time.

And you know, making that connection with everything being dynamic demonic is certainly one of those things that has seen a real upward, upward trend.

And for me, it's one of the concerning aspects in terms of ethical concerns, you know, how that then filters out into the mainstream popular consciousness to the point where it can make people genuinely very, very frightened.

1:08:18

And, you know, that's, that's that can be really, you know, alarming.

And you know, you mentioned COVID and, and how that saw this uptake in terms of people reporting experiences and reporting their homes being haunted.

But again, you know, that's a time for time when people are really feeling frightened anyway.

1:08:38

You know, you are, you know, you're primed for feeling certain things when you are isolated, cut off, your whole routine has changed.

And as you said, when you're in your home and you're starting to hear things that you wouldn't normally hear because you would be out in your work environment, for example, or out with your friends and family, suddenly those fears that you have about what's happening in the world are manifested and you start to experience these things that make you feel frightened.

1:09:06

But of course, if you're going to the, the popular TV show that is saying that this is something demonic that's being experienced on this show and the next episode, something similar again, just filters through that this is something negative, something bad, something to be frightened of.

1:09:24

Which I think has some really very concerning ethical questions around, around some of what is put out there in, in mainstream viewing and consumption really.

And I don't know if you if you have any other similar concerns or something different that you would say are some of the the concerning aspects that you see when it comes to paranormal investigation groups and you know shows that go in and investigate residential cases or locations etcetera.

1:09:57

You know what your opinion is on on some of that that I've just been referencing there.

Sure.

Well, and, and you're actually right.

All of that's absolutely right.

So one of the reasons why there's a focus on evil, demonic stuff, you know, bad stuff.

Let's let's face it, the cultural, you know, the news media in general going back to the, to newspapers and everything just all the way back, they typically report bad news, you know, turn on TV and this has been the case forever since TV and radio have been around.

1:10:30

You always report the bad stuff because people are concerned and the that catches people attention.

Positive stories don't always work for ratings.

It's pretty rare that that happens unless you turn it into a comedy of some kind.

1:10:48

It's truly fictional.

The the reality shows in general exaggerate conflict.

It's not just paranormal ones, it's often the other reality shows as well.

They exaggerate conflict and the producers have learned.

1:11:04

Really the networks have learned or they the streaming services learned.

You get more eyes and ears on a show if people are emotionally involved.

And the easiest way to get people emotionally involved is through fear.

1:11:20

So that's why horror films do so well.

You know, that's why people go to roller coasters.

We like that adrenaline rush.

It's just natural for human beings.

So with television, with these reality shows, what most people don't realize is how much of it's not really that candid and how much of it is directed.

1:11:42

You know, we had an upswing in reality programming in 1988 here in the United States because of the Writers Guild strike and the networks and the cable channels all realized that they could do more programming cheaper by not paying people, by having no script and no writers and no, not even paying talents.

1:12:01

Most of the ghost hunting shows, the talent that the on screen people don't even get paid the first year for the most part.

So it really was about what can we do to get ratings?

And again, it's that danger evil thing and demonic stuff basically bringing horror into these shows.

1:12:22

When I was doing television initially in the 1980s on this subject, we would we'd have places like the Band to Inn that I talked about earlier and several of the the shows were fine shooting during the daytime.

1:12:37

In fact, we had more phenomena happening there during the daytime than at night, because at night it was too crowded for that with the folks hanging out the the bar, restaurant patrons.

So they were fine.

But there were times that I would be doing a show or somebody would contact me to do a segment for a news show.

1:12:54

Literally the news.

Can we go late at night when it's darker because it's spookier?

Can we turn the lights out?

There are a number of times a director with myself and the cameraman and the sound guy doing an investigation or doing something would say, you know, this would be really good if we could turn the lights out completely.

1:13:12

And of course, the cameraman would look at them and say, yeah, but then nobody could see anything.

And TV is a visual medium.

So that never happened.

But then Sony produced night shot cameras for consumers, and night night shot became popular.

1:13:28

And then TV companies were able to do things in the dark and of course, with the eyes looking like they do, you know, reflecting the infrared.

It's really been television that's been pushed, pushed things into even further and further into the spooky world that's there.

1:13:43

People seem to think it's candid.

What happens is, and I'll give you an example from my life doing a segment for Unsolved Mysteries back in the 80s.

This was a poltergeist case, physical activity happening.

They wanted to revisit this case.

1:14:00

I had been consulted on it by a local reporter in Milwaukee, WI and that took talked to the original couple.

They had moved out of the house.

They weren't experiencing anything else in their other house, but the show wanted to do something about that case.

1:14:15

And so they went to they got permission from the new owners of the house to shoot in that house.

They did an interview with the previous owners as well and the director had this idea that he wanted to make it demonic.

The problem was the couple living in the house had experienced nothing since the other couple left because was connected to the other couple.

1:14:37

Poltergeist phenomena comes from the living.

The previous couple that when they were interviewed were not afraid of the phenomena.

They were concerned by it but not afraid of it.

They didn't think it was demonic.

The director in interviewing me kept on trying to ask me.

He was asking me questions about poltergeist and things like that.

1:14:55

And as typical, most directors would say, can you say it shorter?

Can you say it longer?

You're not asking for versions of the answer for the for the editing.

But then he was trying to get me to say that this was a demon and I refused to do that.

All right, as it happens, I ended up getting cut out of the segment.

1:15:17

I was not told I was cut out of the segment, but when it aired, I was cut out.

And in my place, they look talked to a local minister who said, oh, this phenomena is definitely demonic.

And they edit it in a way that made it seem like both couples thought it was demonic.

So that's a pretty good example of how the TV production people are running this situation with the ghost hunting shows guaranteed that very often you'll see the ghost hunters walking into a room and they get a little freaky.

1:15:51

You know, they they get a little freaked out.

They probably didn't the first time they walked in that room.

They might have actually felt something if there were some real phenomena there, but they were probably told to go back out and come back in.

But this time, can you exaggerate that?

Can you do this?

1:16:06

Can you, you know, react a little bit differently?

I, I often point to, we have a show, series of shows out here called The Real Housewives, probably available on streaming in the UK as well.

And there's often fights, you know, arguments like loud screaming arguments between the real, these women.

1:16:26

And the odds are, and I know this from somebody who worked on one of the shows, that they will have an argument.

It won't be a shouting match, but then the producer director will say, hey, let's do that again, but this time yell at each other or start throwing things to make the show more exciting.

1:16:42

So when you're dealing with that, plus the editing itself, which is not done by the investigators by the way, you end up with something that is hopefully from the production, production perspective going to get ratings, keep eyes on it, but will not necessarily be a, you know, representative of what actually happened.

1:17:04

In fact, it won't be representative of what actually happened, which is usually a lot of nothing.

Most of the time nothing happens.

It's a, it's having, I think, a very clear, a very clear idea that when you're watching something like this, it has a very different purpose.

1:17:23

You know that this has been generated for a very specific outcome and that is its sole purpose.

That's what it's trying to do and.

The the purpose of these shows honestly is supposed to be entertainment, but it's mainly to get ratings to to get eyes on it.

1:17:40

Yeah.

And I, and I, and I think it's being aware of that as you're watching it and you're consuming it.

And likewise, you know, if you are then seeing paranormal investigators in the field offering services, doing all of these things, it's, it's knowing that there are credible places that you can go to for support if you are experiencing something to avoid.

1:18:04

Also, what I see happening, which are, you know, people genuinely frightened by something going to going to someone that they find maybe on Facebook or some other social platform and then being charged thousands and thousands of pounds because they've been told after a 30 minute conversation that their house is possessed by something demonic and has only frightened that family even more.

1:18:29

Who then find that money to then go down this route.

Which again, as we've talked about and kind of highlighted, is just so unethical and is so far removed from what should be happening when it comes to experiences like that.

1:18:45

And, you know, from both sides, that's not something that is helpful for anyone going through something like that to, to have that be the, you know, the place that they go to when, when they're experiencing something.

Because more often than not, it doesn't solve the problem.

1:19:00

It just means that their bank account is a little bit lighter, which again is the, the kind of the negative side of some of what we see happening.

And so I think it's again, just so important to highlight, you know, websites like that you're putting together the work like that people like you are doing to raise awareness for very credible institutions, organisations of, of where you can go to research, find things out or be signposted to places where you can go for support, investigators, where you can go to for support if experiencing something like this, rather than some of the, you know, the less the less helpful routes that I think people find themselves sadly going down through just lack of awareness as the days grow.

1:19:53

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1:23:00

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Yeah, You know, I've, I've gotten calls from people who've had the local ghost hunting group come in.

1:23:37

And usually, I mean, most of those groups don't charge anything, but it doesn't matter.

The, the group will come in and like I said, sometimes the group will, will kick them out of the house because their favorite TV show, that's what the show, the show people did.

Sometimes they'll let them stay.

1:23:53

They'll be in the house, turn the lights out, use all their equipment.

They will conclude, you know, provide you with some, some so-called evidence.

Usually it's EVP or something like that the next day and declare your house is haunted.

But you call them, these people call this group for help and all they're getting is confirmation supposedly because of an EVP, which is probably misinterpreted anyway, that there's something there, No solutions, no referrals, that's it.

1:24:23

I remember 11 call I got from a couple that were were absolutely freaked out because the minor activities that they were experiencing when they called in the the group, they were sent to a motel.

They went to the motel.

1:24:39

The group was supposedly there to check what's going on overnight, use all their fancy equipment, and they get a call about 4:00 in the morning from the leader of that group saying we're out of your house, we're done, we're gone, we're not coming back.

The guy's like, why not?

1:24:55

You have a demon in your house.

What do you mean we have a demon in your house?

The guy said we got an EVP of a really nasty growl, which by the way, could have been somebody's stomach growling.

But the growl on that EVP is what that what freaked out or frightened the ghost hunters and sent them running from the house, leaving this couple now not only with the idea that they're not getting any help, but leaving this couple with the idea that they have a demon in their house.

1:25:24

So this is a real problem.

I also don't see them going in most of these groups going in and looking for normal explanations first, looking for what else could be the possibility before or and we we actually do that in a pre interview on the phone.

1:25:39

I explore all sorts of when I'm talking to somebody, I want to explore all possibilities, non paranormal explanations for the the individual events, not just the overall case that's there.

So it's really important from an ethical perspective, from a a human perspective.

1:25:56

If somebody asks you for help, get them help, even if you can't do it.

I just finished teaching this past fall with my colleague John Cruth.

We taught a course called Ethics for Field Investigations, and it's all about the idea of ethics and applying that when you go out in an investigation and what's most important, even consent forms and things like that.

1:26:20

So it's a piece that's absolutely missing.

It's also missing from some psychics too unfortunately.

I agree with you.

I completely agree with you.

And you know, again, having spoken to investigators who support families, for example through the Society for Psychical Research here in the UK, who are very much dealing with live cases at the moment.

1:26:46

Having spoken to some of those family members and the investigators at the centre of some of these investigations going on.

You can just see that the night and day difference in terms of the level of support and thoroughness that goes into what it is that organisations like the SBR do, like you yourself have done etcetera.

1:27:06

Because it is that holistic, complete approach in terms of this is a family at the heart of whatever is going on and being mindful of that and conscious of that with everything that that happens as a part of that process and that investigation.

1:27:22

To say that the highest priority for us is not to find the phenomena as to actually help, you know, help the client, that's the most important thing.

Absolutely.

So again, just to kind of change subjects slightly and come back to something that you spoke about earlier, which again, I find fascinating is this, this approach of mentalist, that mentalism that you've spoken about, this kind of other string to your bow, which I think is fascinating because it must be quite interesting for you personally, straddling both the the performance aspect with what you do there.

1:28:00

And of course, then the very real research investigative approach that you have with your other, your other hats.

How do you, how do you balance those two things together?

Because they would seem to be quite different, but yet I personally, I think possibly gives you some very interesting insight.

1:28:22

So yeah, I, I don't know if you want to elaborate on that.

Yeah, no, I'm, I'm, yeah, happy to do so.

I, I mean, I got into magic actually very late in life.

It was actually in grad school.

We had a course taught to us by a local magician to about mentalism and magic and and fraudulent psychic stuff.

1:28:40

So basically faking psychic experiences or abilities and that was important for researchers to know something about.

In fact I ended up Co teaching with a mentalist back in New York at the ASPR Toto workshop for for parapsychologists.

It was not for the public, it was for some of my colleagues.

1:28:57

I actually happened to enjoy performing.

I mean, that was one thing when I started had this course, I happened to be bartending my way through Graduate School and I started doing magic at the bar and I really loved doing that.

I'd done a little comedy in college and in the 80s I ended up performing for private parties, corporations and also at comedy clubs doing comedy magic.

1:29:20

But I was still kind of learning more and more about the mentalism, the pseudo sized stuff throughout the whole time.

And then one of my colleagues, really a mentor, Marcelo Truzzi, really pushed me towards the mentalism side, which I switched over to completely, although still with a little bit of humor.

1:29:40

In 1990, ended up getting joining the Psychic Entertainers Association.

And eventually somehow it's from 2001 to 2005, I was president of that international organization that I had experience in parapsychology helped the mentalism side because I can come across as more genuine about the phenomena.

1:30:05

And I've actually chastised some of my buddies who are psychic entertainers about the misinformation they produce sometimes in their explanations.

But what's what's really been good for me has been the fact that what I've learned in magic and mentalism and continue to learn is how people, the general person out there views, perceives something in the environment, whether it's a magic trick, a psychic, you know, a phony psychic or whatever else.

1:30:40

What's going on?

How do they see that?

How do they come to their conclusions?

And what are the things that could cause them to think differently about their conclusions?

It's really interesting that magicians who don't know anything about mentalism are easy to fool by mentalists.

1:30:59

Mentalists can fool them.

And one of the reasons of course magicians can fool other magicians as well with new effects.

But one of the reasons is the psychology of mentalism is different than the psychology of magic and our methods are different than what magicians might use.

So there's, there's a lot of misconceptions magicians have about psychic phenomena and about mentalism for that matter.

1:31:22

But it's all informed me so that when I go out and investigation, I am looking at the environment with the house or whatever, all their experiences through a very different lens than what most people might.

And one of the things I learned magic and mentalism is, which is one of the reasons why you can a mentalist can fool a magician, is that folks often look for complicated explanations when very often the simplest or most obvious way will be the way that what's actually going on in their perceptions or in the environment.

1:32:00

As an example, I'm very lazy when it comes to card tricks.

I don't really do card tricks.

So I found other ways to do things that a magician will kind of yell at me for that probably wouldn't fool the general public, but will fool magicians because I know how they think.

1:32:19

And that's an interesting thing because I'm using something lazy and and obvious that a a layperson would think of.

But magicians often go for more complicated methodology.

Mentalists look for easy if it's possible, sometimes complex.

1:32:35

But it's all informed me about not so much the phenomena, but actually the investigative process and understanding the environment and what people are experiencing.

It's really been very helpful also knowing that some people are going to think something is paranormal no matter what.

1:32:51

I used to do a show with an event that a psychic.

I worked with Annette Martin psychic and medium.

We actually co-authored a book called the Ghost Detectives Guide to haunt San Francisco.

Annette was a phenomenal psychic.

She passed away in 2011.

1:33:07

We worked together for many years and we did events at the Moths Beach Distillery where I would do mentalism upfront, my performing persona as Professor Paranormal, and then I would segue as a parapsychologist and introduce Annette and we would do, she would do kind of a gallery reading, but also connect with the try to connect with the spirit that was there, the ghost that was at the distillery.

1:33:29

And part of my ACT, which is leftover from my magic comedy act was working with a raccoon puppet, my mutant psychic raccoon who reads minds.

It's very much a comedy piece.

And yet even though that's a centerpiece, one piece of my ACT, people would come up to me afterwards, come up to Annette and myself, and they'd ask me if I do private readings.

1:33:57

And that kind of blew me away quite a bit because after everything I did, which very clearly, you know, I, I said it's not really psychic.

Here's the real psychic.

It's Annette.

So people would accept that what I was doing, even with the raccoon apparently was psychic response, by the way, was I don't do private readings.

1:34:16

The raccoon does, but he's got a six month waiting list.

Brilliant answer and it's so comical as an answer, but I can, I, I find it fascinating because as you kind of touched on there and as and as I think you really clearly explained, I can see how it very much enriches your understanding of that investigation process.

1:34:39

In terms of, like you said, how people could be thinking and approaching and seeing things that again, you can see the connection with, with having those different hats and having that deeper understanding can allow you to bring to what you're doing there as well, which again, I think is fascinating to see that crossover.

1:34:59

And yeah, just brilliant that you you have that string to your bow really because I do think it is interesting looking at the human perspective and and what it is and how they're perceiving their environment.

I think it's a really under explored aspect often times when it comes to investigation and just having the ability to think about it from that lens that you've been mentioning there.

1:35:25

Yeah, and, you know, I, I get consulted one of my colleagues every once in a while.

I have exposed a few psychic frauds over the years.

So, you know, I'm also feeling very, you know, confident in approaching this, any of this from where there is fraud, we will find fraud kind of perspective.

1:35:44

And of course, I can be everybody in the in the misconception about magicians is every magician can be fooled by some other magician somewhere.

No one is perfect.

And, and you can even tell that just by going to a a magic convention and seeing all the new tricks and how many people come jump out of their chairs to buy that new trick for the new event.

1:36:05

It's not only because they want to perform and it's because they want to know the secret.

So it's really important to continue to expand and look for new methods and, and all of that.

And my colleagues are aware of all this.

And with certain phenomena, especially the mediumship stuff, it's really important to understand what else could be going on in these circumstances and try to eliminate all of those things.

1:36:29

Absolutely.

I, I, as I say, I think it's fascinating.

I think it's, I think it's a really important viewpoint and, and part of it that you bring, which again, I, I think it would be really useful if more people had that kind of insight, which again, I think comes back to what we've been talking about.

1:36:47

It's education, it's understanding.

It's, it's looking beyond what we see and shown to us and seeing that there is so much more out there that can really inform our understanding of of the paranormal world as we kind of think of it as or maybe perceive it as that.

1:37:04

It's so much bigger than simply what is put out there on television and and other mediums like that.

Yeah, I think it's great that you're again, just raising that educational awareness through all these different lenses that you bring your understanding and your experience to, which is fantastic.

1:37:23

And just kind of thinking ahead to this coming year 2025.

I mean you mentioned earlier that you are looking to create a second volume of your book, paranormal case book.

Do you have any other things planned for works for the for the coming year that you're kind of starting to put together or think about looking ahead?

1:37:47

Yeah, so one, the other one I mentioned earlier also was a book called Presenting the Paranormal to the Public, which is based on a course I teach for the Ryan Education Center every summer.

People have been asking me, my students been asking me to put that into a book.

And it it really is for people who are either in the paranormal world or anyone who is having experiences and wants to talk to other people about it without sounding like they're crazy.

1:38:13

I think that's the way I'm kind of putting it, you know, because people always look at you weird when you start talking about some of these things.

So it's really about how to talk credibly about it.

You know, the language you use.

If you're so many of the ghost hunters, you're using new words that they find fascinating.

1:38:28

They have nothing to do with their, have more to do with folklore than they do with anything else.

But they love to talk about, you know, to come up with new concepts or terms.

And so it's about that.

It's about, you know, if you want to go out and speak to the public.

I, I was a, I've been a public speaking coach and taught public speaking for many, many years as well.

1:38:46

So I'm including that in there a little bit about writing and publishing and about, you know, what you can do to kind of get the word out about if you want to be a speaker or a writer, that kind of thing.

So that book, I'm hoping for the 1st come out in the first half of the year.

1:39:03

But before that, my book Mind Over Matter, which was published originally in the 90s and then was republished by Llewellyn a few years ago.

It's out of print now and I have the rights back.

So I'm going to bring bring back back into print hopefully no later than the end of February.

1:39:21

So that should be back in print at that point as well.

And then I'm looking at some, possibly some shorter, shorter form books.

I've been teaching a course called Developing Your Intuition for the Rhine Center for a number of years.

And I'm going to create a video version of that to put up in in some ways connected to a short book.

1:39:43

I'm going to put a lot of that.

The exercises and stuff I've come up with are going to go into a short book.

So that'll be out sometime the first half of the year too.

Otherwise, you know it, it's really going to be be dependent on what comes.

Now that I have my website up, I can start promoting some other things again, and I'm hoping to do more performing this year too.

1:40:05

Some people may not be aware of this, but of course, in addition to your academic work, you've also written fiction You've co-authored 2 Paranormal Mystery.

Novels, yeah.

Do you want to tell us a little bit about those books and you know how you kind of again, bring in your world of parapsychology in your experiences maybe maybe into some of those novels that you've you've written to date?

1:40:28

So there are two novels in the series so far, and we had hoped to have the third one out last year, but due to some family issues that our main author, Rich Hosek had, we we're a little delayed.

All right, so the first book, first two books are called near death is the first one.

1:40:46

Second one is afterlife 2 words and they're subtitled A rainy slash day investigation.

The two character main characters 1 is a parapsychologist, anthropologist who a woman who also practice does magic.

1:41:03

She's loosely based on me and the other is in a retired cop.

He was shot in a robbery, had a near death experience that led to him get having information to kind of help solve the case.

But he's a skeptic and the two of them end up working together on cases paranormally related.

1:41:22

So the the the book brings in phenomena and experiences that I have encountered over the years.

Rich Hosek is our main authors.

He does the first pass and then Arnold Rudnick is the second author and I'm involved in this process as well to make sure the parapsychology is correct in there.

1:41:42

I also write an afterword for the first two books and I'll be writing one for the third one, which we'll talk about in a moment about the phenomena.

So there's a little non fiction at the end of the book kind of explaining the phenomena within the book in a more parapsychological way.

But again, for the general public, the third book will be called Farsight and it will involve remote viewing.

1:42:03

Since I've been connected to that world a little bit.

I co-authored a book called ESP Wars East and West, which is the history of the US government's psychic spying program as well as the Russian psychic spying program.

1:42:18

It's the only book out there that has contributions from the Russian side of things as well.

So I'm kind of connected, very well connected there to that area as well.

We hope to have the book out.

I'm not sure what our timeline is right now, but more likely to be the second-half of the year.

1:42:36

The books just to let you know Rich and Arnold were TV writers and I got to know Arnold because he was consulting with me back in the 90s for a screenwriter who was writing a script involving psychokinesis and we became very good friends introduced me to Rich.

1:42:52

But Arnold and I initially came up with a show ATV show proposal, which we brought Rich in to kind of play with, which eventually became called rainy and day.

And we wrote a script, tried to get that sold.

We almost we had we're close in a couple minutes this, but actually The X-Files knocked us out of the running at that time.

1:43:12

So over the years we've been kiddingly talking about writing a series of novels because we not only had that one script, but we also had some we had a little show Bible kind of story ideas or plots for subsequent episodes.

And that's what we're working off of.

That's what Rich is starting with.

1:43:29

So this is people have told me how much the book reads like it should be ATV show or a movie.

And that's because that was our original intention and our current intention is hopefully to be able to get it out there as AT VS a streaming series at some point.

1:43:47

Oh gosh, I would love that because yeah, those that type of material is something that I just love consuming as part of my reading material.

And yeah, it's just, yeah, brilliant to have something like that out there because there hasn't been, there hasn't been many TV shows similar that kind of offer that to the the general public.

1:44:09

I can think of a couple of things outside of The X-Files here in the United Kingdom, but I don't know how wide, how wide they've been out there in terms of beyond the UK.

So yeah, it would be, it would be brilliant if there were more, more things like that available to read, to view, be brilliant.

1:44:27

So it's fantastic that you've got this again, this other part of your life where you kind of bring this world into something else that you do.

Keeps you very busy I'm sure.

Yeah, thanks.

I'm, I'm, I'm a busy person, but not, you know, fortunately have plenty of free time here and there, except when I'm reading papers and.

1:44:47

I was just going to say, and of course you're going to be busy with all the things that you do in terms of education and you know, all all the various things that we've talked about in terms of material that you teach and again, how you put yourself out there into the community via podcasts and other things that you do.

1:45:05

Do you want to, again, just thinking about that aspect of what you're teaching next?

Do you want to maybe just share some of what you're going to teaching at the Ryan Institute coming up?

Yeah, So the Ryan Center, the new classes we have starting that I'll be teaching and they're starting the week of the 1st week of February.

1:45:25

And just to mention that they are online, we do have a live lecture, which would be a little too late I think for folks in the UK, But I think only about 1/3 of my students actually attend the live session.

We record the the the lectures there repeated the next morning.

People can actually access them.

1:45:41

We have discussion forums, people can take them for for fun or they can just take them.

If they want to take them for grades towards a certificate, they can do that as well.

So one of the courses I'm teaching will be an 8 week class called Investigating the Paranormal Apparitions, Hauntings and Poltergeist.

1:45:58

So it's a basic investigations course.

The parapsychological way, that's an 8 week class paired with that which will be a March class, four week class looking specifically at various forms of equipment and technology.

So it's paranormal tech, you might say, with some focus on EVP and instrumental trans communication, but also looking at from a very practical perspective, looking at all the various types of equipment, why things are should not be used the way that they're using them.

1:46:29

Let's put it that way.

Then the third course on teaching, which is Co taught with a skeptic.

He's more of a real skeptic, although he still is on the slightly disbelieving area.

And man named Kenny Biddle, who's done some really good work in the ghost hunting world, taking apart pieces of equipment, something that Steve Parsons at the SPR has also done, kind of taken apart the equipment and figuring out what's really going on in these black boxes that these manufacturers are now putting out to the ghost hunters.

1:46:59

It's called a skeptical approach to parapsychology and it really is about critical thinking and why skepticism, not disbelief, but skepticism is so important to the scientific process in the laboratory and outside the laboratory.

1:47:16

You know, all of that is very, very important.

And Kenny and I can I go back and forth and teaching week to week on that.

So those are coming up.

And then there are there are a couple of other events that I've got coming up as well that folks can find actually can look on the events page on my website, lloydauerbach.com.

1:47:38

I also do and every other Sunday night, again, not not great timing for the UK, but they are recorded.

I do something every other Sunday night called Ask Professor Paranormal and it's a live Q&A on YouTube.

It is 8:30 PM Eastern Time.

1:47:58

So it's a little bit late for the UK on the Sunday nights and it's at youtube.com slash at Ask Professor Paranormal again, the link is there on my website for that as well, so folks can send in quests, questions they want me to answer.

1:48:14

But I have people, I have some regulars who are constantly with me every week and each show is recorded.

It's up the next morning under the live tab on that Channel.

Easy to find for that.

Generally if you just pop in Ask Professor Paranormal to YouTube, you'll find it very easily.

1:48:33

And of course, I will make sure to include the links to the various things that we've been speaking about in both the podcast description notes as well as on the website.

So they can easily actually just click on the link to find your YouTube page, your website, and you know, links to your books, etcetera.

1:48:52

Because I think that just makes it a bit easier for anybody who has been following this discussion and wants to follow up by maybe checking out your YouTube page or picking up some of the material that you've written, whether it's fiction or academic.

Just having that chance to be able to easily, easily find those is something that I will try and try my best to do with just very easy links to make that possible for people listening And, you know, just kind of coming drawing things together in terms of all the various things that we've talked about when it comes to the the paranormal field.

1:49:29

Looking ahead again, so thinking beyond 2024 into this new year and beyond, what do you think the future holds for the field of parapsychology?

And, you know, are there things that you are looking forward to, areas that you are finding emerging at the moment that are particularly interesting or excited by?

1:49:50

You know, where, where do you see things going or what do you hope for the future when it comes to the field of parapsychology?

Well, you know, what's really interesting is that parapsychologists have since the beginning been dealing with consciousness, and it's only been relatively recently in in science and time that other scientists have been interested in, in the question, what David Chalmers calls the hard question of science, which is what is consciousness.

1:50:18

So we are seeing more and more folks, although the models or ideas of what consciousness is are all over the place at this point.

But we're seeing folks in physics, in psychology, in neuroscience, in biology, in philosophy, just people from all fields that are starting to look at this question.

1:50:39

And as they're looking at this question, interestingly enough, some of them are realizing the parapsychologists have been looking at this question for a long time.

So we're, there's more interaction now from an interdisciplinary perspective that I see happening.

1:50:58

It's, it's still not where it should be, but it's getting greater and greater.

And I see this developing more and more over the next, you know, 10 years, for example, where parapsychology has always been in interdisciplinary science, trying to bring people in from other sciences.

1:51:15

I'm not saying that we're going to be the center of all this, but we're dealing with phenomena of consciousness and experiences that none of the other fields have really been dealing with other than saying they don't exist.

That's changing.

It's changing because these folks looking at consciousness are looking at this question.

1:51:32

There's still a big divide between materialists and non materialists, but it's really encouraging to see how much interaction there actually is and how much more even parapsychologists are looking towards some of these new researchers who are looking at the consciousness question.

1:51:50

It's it's just, you know, people always say I get asked by, by especially by the pseudoskeptics, where's your proof of the existence of ghosts?

And I go back to the question, where's your proof of the existence of consciousness?

Science is not about proof.

It's about evidence.

Honestly, it's been so fascinating to talk to you.

1:52:08

I just really appreciate your time.

I think you bring such a, a brilliant perspective when it comes to talking about this material, not only because of your years of experience investigating, but educating.

You have a real passion for this.

1:52:23

And it's so evident because you are just so engrossed within the material and wanting to move things forward.

And I think that's so evident talking to you that it's, as I say, it's just been such a joy to chat to you further about your experiences and what you think about the field and what your hopes are for the field.

1:52:43

And you know, how you see things currently.

So thank you so much for your time, Lloyd.

And and as I mentioned just a moment ago, of course, I will make sure that those links to your books and your website and your podcast etcetera, all the various things that we've touched upon will be in the podcast description notes as well as on the website for for anybody listening.

1:53:05

Thank you.

Been such a pleasure Lloyd, and I'll say goodbye to everybody listening.

Bye everybody.

Thank you for.

Joining us on this journey into the unknown.

If you enjoyed today's episode, please subscribe, rate, and leave a review on your favorite podcast platform.

1:53:27

You can follow us on social media for updates and more intriguing stories.

Until next time, keep your eyes open and your mind curious.

Loyd Auerbach

Parapsychologist

World-recognised paranormal authority and parapsychologist Loyd Auerbach, MS., has 45 years of experience investigating the paranormal and over 40 years teaching courses in Parapsychology. With thousands of media appearances, he is Director of the Office of Paranormal Investigations, President of the Forever Family Foundation, an Adjunct Professor at Atlantic University, and President of the Board of Directors of the Rhine Research Center where he teaches online Parapsychology courses through the Rhine Education Center. He’s the author/co-author of 9 books on the paranormal for the general public including the recent 2nd edition of A Paranormal Casebook, as well as ESP Wars: East & West, Psychic Dreaming, and the classic ESP, Hauntings and Poltergeists: A Parapsychologist’s Handbook. He is also co-author of the paranormal mystery novels Near Death: A Raney/Daye Investigation and the second in the series, After Life. He is a professional mentalist and Past President of the Psychic Entertainers Association performing as Professor Paranormal, and also occasionally does his thing as a professional chocolatier. You can see him in episodes of The UnXplained running on a few streaming platforms, and Surviving Death on Netflix, as well as a number of other shows still streaming on various platforms. Visit his podcast channel at www.YouTube.com/@askprofessorparanormal and his media page at www.YouTube.com/@loydauerbach