It has been a recent hot topic of debate whether or not paranormal groups should be charging for the investigation of “suspicious or haunted places”. I find this a compelling topic that appears to have two very heated sides to it. One side would say they are charging in order to pay for equipment, gas, supplies and other such things. They might even go so far as to say they are providing a service to the people they are investigating. The other side would argue that it is up to the individual who chooses to study the field to supply these things as we have not proof that we can not conclusively know what the paranormal is and thus should not expect it to be paid for by someone else.
In order to get a better grand scheme picture of the types of groups involved in the argument I thought it might be helpful to look outside of the paranormal and get some real world perspectives to compare it to. I started with scientists. When a scientist is interested in something he does not walk out his/her front door and claim to be an expert on the subject. He knows he/she merely has an idea and is going to have to prove it exists and to see where it goes. The scientist will spend many hours and much of his/her own money experimenting to prove the theory holds truth. He or she won’t charge others interested in the theory, but might ask them to lend their expertise in order to find out more about whether their theory works or not. Further until the scientist has done many, many experiments and has a working model that proves true over and over again he wouldn’t dream of charging others to use his theory.
Engineers and inventors are no different. They too are looking for new ideas, searching for new products, and creating new things every day, but they do not charge for a thought until a prototype has been established that works and has proven itself to work over and over again. Then they might consider selling the plans to a company who can produce it on a larger scale. Here is where I believe the average experienced paranormal investigator stands. This we will say is group two. They are the group that is against charging for the “service” they are providing because they are studying and trying to make sense of a theory that they have no “proof” for other than the experiments they are accumulating.
Then you have the other side of the coin. On this side of the coin you have people who are technicians, we will say computer techs as an example, they claim big knowledge and expertise, but when faced with a problem they cave under the pressure and cop to the fact that they actually know a lot on paper but have little or no experience or worse they make something up that is false to cover their tracks. There are web designers with no background or degree in their field claiming to be able to do wonderful things, but they fall short when faced with real coding issues and other unexpected phenomena. There are religious people who claim to be priests /priestesses /ministers /reverends but have little more than an online two-minute ordination to back this up, or worse have little or no understanding of the religion they are working with. Yet they are running around like little Demi Gods waiting to be worshiped by their loyal followers. Finally we have con men that make a living out of impersonating the professionals.
There are people everywhere who are waiting to scheme to make money off of us and provide very little or nothing in return. Here is where I will classify the paranormal "show men". They are those that make claims that they cannot hold up to. They come in guns a blazing with loads of fancy equipment and language that others don’t understand. They make themselves look like the “real thing”. They do not necessarily have the training or background, nor do they have the expertise. They are not con artists per say, but they are certainly not entirely honest either. If and when something really does go wrong people begin to see a different side of them. Suddenly they don’t have all the answers and start back peddling leaving the “serviced” client upset and confused. Didn’t they pay good money for an expert?
So with this new perspective lets consider the argument. Some important questions to ask might be any number of the following. If a group starts charging what are they charging for? A Hobby, a scientific study of what “might be out there”, a educated guess? Are they charging the client to do? What is the client paying for equipment, gas, or even supplies? Well if you were doing model cars as a hobby would you charge someone else for the supplies for your hobby? If you were a scientist would you charge someone for your experimental supplies and just who could you charge for your own experiments on a theory you are trying to prove to be true?
Sure money sounds good to anyone. The Ghost Hunters make money right? Yes, but where to they make their money from? Sci-fi pays them not the client being “serviced”. Yes, they got lucky, it’s a shot in a million. I am wiling to bet that Sci-fi also pays for most of their equipment that gets used on the show, again not the client paying for the equipment.
Now, Lets get back to the real problems that face those who argue for charging for paranormal “services”. Here are some of the potential problems that they will face as paranormal investigators. If they claim to provide a “service”, then they are claiming to have factual, accurate knowledge and methods that have been proven to irrefutably produce a specific accurate result in the field of study they are working in. Further they are entering into an agreement that says they can and will fulfill that service. It is a simple lawful contract that happens whenever money is exchanged for goods or services. The government will now require them to file company tax returns and other such explanations of activities and expenses. They will have to function like any other business entity. If they don’t want to pay taxes they will have to pay exuberant fees and file loads of paperwork to become a legal nonprofit corporation, which leads to them not being able to charge again.
Then there is the problem of finding or not finding paranormal activity, and what to do about it. Does this mean they guarantee they will find something? If they don’t are they going to make something up so they can charge the client more? What are the client’s rights? Do they get a refund? In Massachusetts at least, any person entering into a contract for goods or services in exchange for money can sue for unfulfilled goods and services.
There is also the matter of at least one group who charges a fee to rid you of your ghost. I have actually seen this on their site, though they shall remain nameless. As a clergy member I found this almost laughable. How can you claim to rid someone of something when you consider that all that we know of the paranormal is that it exists but not in what context, in what form, or even to what degree. We honestly don’t know. So how exactly are you going to charge a client for a service that you can neither prove, disprove, or rid them of? And again what happens when that person comes back and tells you that your service did not work and your contract has still yet to be fulfilled. What happens when inevitably you cannot remove the paranormal activity because you have no proven way to do so?

What we do know about the paranormal is that we can't prove anything. We are all scientists who are trying to prove a theory, but last I knew there was not yet a proven method in order to do so. We are all trying to figure out, prove and otherwise gain rational for the irrational events that sometimes exist. The hope is that someday we might understand the fuller scope of the paranormal. Someday indeed we may be able to claim that we can actually get rid of spirits or at the very least send them on their way. But that day is not today. It will not be tomorrow, and it may not even be in our lifetimes.
That being said it concerns me that there are groups that feel it is ok to charge in the paranormal field. They have the potential to do irreversible damage to the reputations of the scientists in the field who are not looking for a hand out or a quick buck but are truly there to gain a better understanding of the paranormal or what we perceive as outside of the normal. As I have proven earlier on, charging for something does not make someone an expert at what they do, experienced or any more able to produce results. Those that charge can ultimately do to the paranormal field what fake psychics have done to real ones; make them un-trusted groups of people and fields of study that others should be skeptical of. Further it really makes a mockery of the whole idea of experimental science, which is what paranormal science is.
So what is the solution to keeping those who would do damage out? Well first let us remember that there will always be those around us that do the field damage. There will always be those who are unprofessional, untrustworthy, who are looking for the next big cool thing to do, and those that are less than desirable in their intentions. That is simply fact no matter the area of life we look at. However in order to be proactive in the matter of keeping it real in the paranormal field and in order to make things better for all; or at least stop the spread of sketchy practices you might consider the following solution as my humble suggestion for a positive spin on a bad situation. Why not form a coalition, an alliance with the people who do this for “real” ghost hunting?
The word coalition comes from the Latin coalescere 1 a: the act of coalescing : b: a body formed by the coalescing of originally distinct elements : combination2: a temporary alliance of distinct parties, persons, or states for joint action. (taken from websters)
If you want to band people together you have to accept their good and bad, their shortcomings and expertiese. At least in part the reason there are bad ghost hunters is because there is no one out there to teach them the difference between good and bad. My point is a good place to start might be by dropping the facades. There is something to be said for making friends and not competing with or putting each other down. More can be accomplished toward paranormal fact finding with teamwork than without. It doesn't mean you have to be "good buds" with everyone you meet, but the paranormal field should be able to be professional and keep a working relationship with each other, and yes this includes TAPS and other "name brand" teams.
Maybe what the New England paranormal field needs is for someone to put up a meeting of the minds with several local groups that are consider to be reputable. Invite all the local groups to meet up and get to know one another without pressure or competition. During the meeting offer up that the field needs to unify stating the reasons why it is a concern. Then listen to what everyone else has to say. If the consensus seems favorable then back it up with ideas that everyone can help expand and agree on. Make sure you can back it up with something positive to keep out the petty round and round finger pointing. Basically put the all call out to everyone you know to rally to the cause by making it a mutual idea that benefits everyone who has a paranormal group in the New England area.

Band together to create a simple working agreement that meets a specific criteria, which is seen as a standard for paranormal study and conduct, a paranormal code of ethics so to speak. What the criteria would be is up the groups that formed the original coalition. This will help foster a real world mentality because it was created by many not just one "father organization". The coalition should not be responsible for sharing information about their own cases, or even to work together unless they wanted to, there should be no dues, as this is about a mutual alliance not money or dues or who is better than whom. (It could be as simple as a web banner).
The premise would be simple, have each member of the coalition put a banner on each coalition members page that ties them to other groups in the area who share a mutual code of ethics in their study of the paranormal. Think of it more like a brotherhood. This could be something like "trusted and approved" by The Alliance For Mass Paranormal Investigation. Once the positive progress got around groups would want to join, and gain the respect of their peers. By stepping up the plate with those they respected they would have to meet the code of ethics or standards set by the original groups.
The other thing that could be potentially positive is that this will foster teamwork amongst groups and allow for back up regarding cases, allow for the exchange of information when desired about good or bad experiments, equipment and such, however keep in mind this is not the focus the focus is simple, to unify those that want to study and learn without placing restrictions, commitments, dues upon them.

The trick again is to keep it simple and non-committal. It might be pertinent to mutually agree that all the groups would meet up somewhere once every six months to have a group revise and training to help each other excel at the field or something of that nature. Finally when people are looking for a sound group to come in and investigate their home and they start seeing this banner on a few pages it will begin to make sense and word will travel fast. Because there is no restriction on groups each organization groups will still take their own cases and people will make their own decisions. The alliance is more like a safeguard within the field itself.
In all the key is to do something about it, be active not passive and put a positive spin on things instead of leaving it up to someone else, or hoping someone in the paranormal field will pick up the cause.

Good Luck to everyone in the paranormal!
Morgaine Aryiana
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