For many, Halloween means watching horror movies, dressing up in wacky costumes and going out to party the night away. For Paranormal Studies and Investigations in Canada (PSICAN) Halloween means ghost stories and boosted public interest in the paranormal.
PSICAN educates people on how to find ghosts.
The organization is made up of volunteer researchers and documentarians, said Sue St. Clair, the director of ParaResearchers and co-chair of PSICAN.
Their website, psican.org, hosts a stories of paranormal phenomena ranging from ghosts hauntings to cryptozoology (the study of undiscovered animals and plants).
“In general we do receive many more reports in October than at other times of the year, but for the most part this is due – I believe – to the fact that people start thinking more about the paranormal and ghosts, especially during Halloween and the weeks leading up to it,” St. Clair said.
St. Clair said PSICAN doesn’t host any special events or investigations on Halloween night because it is in “the domain of travel, and tour operators, and entertainment companies.”
Although PSICAN does not offer any public investigations, St Clair said students can join a local group or club or start their own using the how-to guide on torontoghosts.org. Here, they can even take an online course on paranormal investigation, she said.
If you are planning on throwing on the investigation gear and jumping out into the world of the paranormal, St Clair has a few pieces of advice:
1. “Keep an open mind.” She advised that students be open to their experiences, whether they support or refute the paranormal.
2. “Shelve dumb misconceptions.” Graveyards at night are not the places student-investigators should look first, she said.
3. “Stay legal. Stay safe.” Nobody should ever break into a site or put themselves in danger by doing anything “stupid” she said. “Going to a historic site or museum and respectfully trying to engage the staff to talk about ghosts, now that takes courage . . . and usually yields much better results.”
4. She recommends that students do some researching before committing to any organization or other investigators. “Read, read, read and read some more. Learn as much as you can from as many sources as possible,” she said.
5. Her last piece of advice to students is: “If you’re looking for fame and fortune, this isn’t the way to do it.”
For ghost stories pertaining to the Ottawa area, students can visit torontoghosts.org.