If you can’t tell by my headline, I absolutely love the horror and supernatural genres of entertainment. Alfred Hitchcock, Vincent Price, George Romero, Quentin Tarantino, Boris Karloff, and Peter Cushing? Cannot get enough.
I love the macabre art inspired by all things dark and taboo. Little coffins decorated with favorite movie characters. Crafted earrings with baby squid tentacles in formaldehyde. Scary sculptures and cosplay. These kind of conventions have everything my heart pumps adrenaline for.
But like any genre, there is a certain aspect to horror I completely reject, but many make a business out of claiming it is science. I’m speaking on things like paranormal investigation, aura photography, and psychic readings. And it’s rife throughout a lot of the secular communities, as well. I find this puzzling, and can’t figure out the appeal to my crowd in particular.
And it’s especially hot this time of year with Halloween fast approaching.
It’s funny how I developed an interest in the notion of ghosts and hauntings though, and strangely an ironic source too. I was probably about nine or ten years old, it was Halloween night and a televised séance to contact Harry Houdini was on the television. I don’t remember why I got to see it that night, especially since my parents and I usually spent two hours of Halloween sitting quietly in the dark of our living room as trick or treaters came and went.
Up until I’d watched that Halloween special, I didn’t even know what a séance was. I’d read many books at that point at the library up at the corner of my block, but I’d always favored Martians, Sasquatch, and mythological legends. Ghosts, telekinesis, and dark rituals were new to me, and became a quick addiction for a number of years after. The idea of life after death, even as a wraith, didn’t fascinate me. I was perceiving supernatural phenomena from a more science fiction fantasy point of view.
It was another dimension. One we were still discovering how to 
manipulate and utilize, and I wanted to know more so I might get there sooner. I often wondered if I might find myself in a situation like Captain Picard in “All Good Things”, but I never did. Fortunately I’d fallen out of love with the idea of escapist fantasy by the time I reached twenty, and dove headlong into just the urban myth section of supernatural lore.
But I am astounded at how taken in many skeptics are when it comes to life after death and ghostly evidence. I realize that atheism only pertains to a god figure, but this fascination with life after death has had me scratching my head for a while. As I walked around the convention hall this past weekend, I realized it was the almost purposely ignorant attitude a number of folks took in order to immerse themselves in occult like role play that was going on all weekend.
The evidence was obvious that this was a carnival side-show with not a single shred of solid science. Yet, here were thousands of people handing their money to paranormal experts, ghost hunters, and spiritual psychics. A field of industry that banks on willful ignorance and escapist desires to avoid the finality of death.
I have religious and skeptic friends alike, who cannot get enough of hunting for ghosts, spirit voices on tapes, and images of dead children in Antebellum plantation mirrors. A day before I could have a discussion about the effects of group think, the whole while being agreed with by these same friends, to then have them spending $15 bucks for a fifteen minute psychic reading at this convention. Seriously? Just take a Buzzfeed quiz and you can get the same results. And it’s free!
I understand that what is seemingly unexplained is fascinating, but when it comes to ghosts and psychics, I should only need direct you ghost hunting atheists to scientist James Randi, and the same arguments you use to debunk supernatural miracles of faith. For those unfamiliar, James Randi is a former magician and escape artist who made it is his mission to debunk and expose the fraud of supernatural claims. He has witnessed firsthand the manipulation of the public by psychics, ghost hunters, and homeopathic chakra healers, and has sought after some of the most well-known, exposing them as frauds. James Randi has always done his best to keep his field of conjuring as entertainment, where it belongs and should always be enjoyed.
Criss Angel is of the same mind as James Randi. He’s long-held the act of it all being real, but will always acknowledge that it’s entertainment that took years of perfecting. Angel shows us, as has Randi, that the best way to expose frauds is to have them play by your rules when showing off their supposed abilities. Like the time when Angel exposes “paranormalist” Jim Callihan. All Callihan had to do was tell Angel what was in the envelope and a million of Angel’s personal money would be awarded as a prize.
In that situation, if you truly had psychic powers, what would you do? You’d psychically reveal the contents of the f******** envelope immediately!
Not Callihan. He proceeded to almost instantaneously start verbally assaulting Criss Angel’s character, very nearly getting into a fist fight with the illusionist. But the point is that this type of tactic works with anyone who makes claims of being able to be psychic, communicate with your Aunt Susy, or know where Grandma lost her wedding ring. This is especially effective when at carnival shows or conventions like the one I attended this past weekend. I don’t understand why anyone is so willing to throw away money for obvious promises that are too good to ever be true, but at least practice a little forethought before plunking that twenty bucks down on the table for a reading or chakra cleansing.
Or better yet, spend that twenty bucks on a copy of Girls and Corpses magazine, allow Sid Haig to feel up your hips while he signs it, and then reminisce about the experience later while you read your favorite articles of your magazine.
Which is exactly what I did.
