Paradrama

Based on the title of this article, you may be asking yourself, “What is paradrama?” Paradrama is a word coined for the infighting and arguing that results from the firmly held perspectives of some members in the paranormal community. There is a long list of disagreements which can cause open hostility. These may include the proper tools to use for investigations and the conclusions derived from the collected data. Or an investigator’s non-negotiable religious viewpoint, which may prevent one from being open to alternative possibilities.  

Many in the paranormal community have most likely come across paradrama at some point or another during their involvement. Infighting within paranormal groups has resulted in groups breaking apart or disbanding altogether. It won’t take a person long to uncover past and current social media wars between supporters and detractors of paranormal TV shows, paracelebs, as well as paranormal investigative practices and equipment.

Armchair paranormal fans, meaning those who do not investigate, and who only watch paranormal TV shows or movies, most likely have no idea what is happening behind the scenes in our community.

The paranormal community is made up of many incredibly passionate and dedicated people. Some have devoted their entire adult lives to prove the existence of the other side. Our community comes from all types of backgrounds, nationalities, religious upbringings, and personal experiences with paranormal activity. These differing viewpoints often become heated, which is how paradrama rears its ugly head.

Since becoming involved with the paranormal community in 2007, I admit that I have been caught up in the paradrama myself. It has only been in the past few years, where I have stepped back and taken a serious, objectional view of my own beliefs, and recounted my previous reactions to situations involving the paranormal.

Those who know me personally often hear me compare the paranormal community to religion and politics. As we do not have acceptable scientific proof of an after-life, our personal beliefs come into play, just as they do in religion and politics throughout the world.  

Let’s be honest. People can become very defensive with their religious beliefs. For example, there are some Christians who feel a Ouija Board is just a portal for a demon to possess the person(s) using it. If these Christians also happen to be paranormal investigators, they may resent working with (or supporting) other investigators who use spirit boards as a tool during their investigations.

A very popular ITC (Instrumental Transcommunication) device is the Frank’s Box, which is better known in the paranormal community as a spirit box, or its technically improved counterpart – a ghost box. The responses from these boxes may be interpreted as proof of spirit communication. However, as with pareidolia, what one person hears from the box can be quite different than what another person hears.

When watching paranormal investigators on TV shows, I admit that I have verbally responded directly to the TV when I am 100% convinced that the EVP captured is not what I heard from the digital recorder. It is kind of like when you are in a room full of sports fans watching a game, as they tend to scream quite often at the players and referees playing inside the TV. Allowing ourselves to become part of an investigation during a paranormal TV show’s episode can be half the fun. There is nothing wrong with that. It is when someone takes it to the next level – meaning, on social media, that tensions arise, and we all know what happens then.

Speaking of sports, paranormal TV shows have their supporters just as sports teams do. As humans, we like who we like, period. You cannot force someone to like or love something if they mentally and physically genuinely don’t. Amy Allen and Steve DiSchiavi from the Travel Channel’s series, “The Dead Files” have a legion of fans, as do other shows like Paranormal Lockdown, Ghost Adventures, Ghost Brothers, and Ghost Hunters. Unfortunately, sometimes the content of these shows and the investigators themselves can cause bitter hostility in the paranormal community.

Zak Bagans is one paraceleb whose very name can start a heated argument online or in person. But what we all need to do, myself included, is to remember that the paranormal shows on TV are for entertainment purposes only. Would you want to watch an hour-long Dead Files episode when the subject is an old lady who haunts her former house by tidying up the kitchen or who gives kisses on foreheads while whispering “goodnight”? I’m pretty sure you wouldn’t. We watch these shows for the scare factor. We watch them for the evil factor. We watch them for the mystery to be solved. We watch them to see the latest investigation gadgets. We watch them to entertain us while we sit on our couches with a drink or a snack in hand.

But when we bring these paracelebs into online discussions to support or demean others to promote our agendas, that is where we all need to step back and take a closer look at what these arguments benefit.

Some paranormal investigators would not be caught dead (no pun intended) using a ghost box. They believe these boxes are far from a legitimate scientific tool. On the flip side, there are staunch advocates of these boxes and use them during each of their investigations. These two different perspectives often ignite passionately, and sometimes inflammatory rhetoric online, or in person, that does not help push our field forward.

In the past, I have been extremely passionate with my beliefs, but since our society’s meltdown following the election of President Trump and the ever-growing idea that one can say whatever they want online without consequence, I have reevaluated my perspectives of the paranormal.

I will end this article with an analogy that I think the paranormal community needs to take into consideration. For a car to get from point A to point B, it needs a frame, wheels, gas, a steering wheel, a crankshaft, a timing belt…etc. A car cannot get to point B with only a steering wheel and one tire. The car needs all the parts to work together for it to move to its destination.

Perhaps what the paranormal community should be doing is working together to discover unquestionable scientific proof of the other side, instead of wasting the community’s collective energy on “my way is the only way” viewpoint. Who knows, maybe in the end we are all wrong.