COLORADO GHOST HUNTERS - [ARTICLE] Ghost Hunting 101: A Beginner's Guide To Ghost Hunting

COLORADO GHOST HUNTERS

GHOST HUNTING 101: A BEGINNER'S GUIDE TO GHOST HUNTING by Tad, Colorado Ghost Hunters October 30, 2007 I have roamed the internet trying to find useful information that relates to a ghost hunting guide. Most of the information that I have come across usually relates to the gear that helps or hinders a Ghost Hunter, which is usually presented as a sure fact that the gear detects ghosts. The information that is the most critical to the beginning Ghost Hunters is usually watered down or is non-existent in a beginner's guide to ghost hunting. Lets begin at taking a look at the most important aspects of learning about ghost hunting investigations. CHECK YOUR PERSONAL BELIEFS AT THE DOOR People's subjective opinion will interfere with any experience they will encounter. It is naturally expected that people will process an objective situation and evaluate it using their own subjective opinions. They then justify the occurrence with their personal beliefs in order to make some sense of what happened. You will (or have in some cases) encounter people that will explain the truth of what happened to them with extremely fervor. They will continue on with what happened, usually telling you that "something" turned on a light, moved something, or made a sound. Some will even go to the extreme and actually reenact the event(s) that happened. You can even tell that they are telling you the truth by the sincerity of their voice, speed of their speaking, and the body movements they display. All of this is usually followed by the famous saying "I don't know what it was, it was probably a...", usually with little or no evidence. As with some belief systems just because someone will see a plate go flying across the room and then hear a disembodied voice, does not mean it was a ghost. What if it was something completely different than what was to be expected? Was it even paranormal? Could the occurrence be classified as poltergeist activity, a haunting, or something in-human? It could appear any way with a specific set of beliefs, but in order to properly evaluate the occurrence it is necessary to put aside personal beliefs. UNDERSTAND THE BASICS OF CRITICAL THINKING In order to understand specific events that will occur there are a few steps that can be followed. These steps include falsifiability, logic, comprehensiveness, honesty, replicability, and sufficiency. Falsifiability guarantees that if a claim is false, the evidence will prove it false, and if it is true, the evidence provided will not disprove it. Which if the evidence cannot disprove it can be accepted as true until the time as evidence is provided that does disprove it. If nothing conceivable can ever disprove the claim then the evidence that does exist would not matter, because the conclusion is already known. The claim would then be invulnerable to any evidence that is provided. It is logically impossible for a claim to be true no matter what. For every claim that is true you can always discover evidence that would make the claim untrue. Logic entails using "valid" arguments. Arguments are said to be valid if the conclusion follows from its premise. It is a "sound" argument if it is valid and all the premises are true. As in this example: All dogs have fleas; Spot has fleas; therefore Spot is a dog. The argument is invalid because a single cat with fleas named Spot would provide a great counterexample. Try this example: All dogs have fleas; Spot is a dog; therefore Spot has fleas. The argument is unsound even though it is valid, because the first premise is false. Evidence that is offered in support of any claim must be comprehensive; all available evidence must be considered. It is never reasonable to consider only the evidence that supports a claim and discard the evidence that contradicts it. This rule is frequently broken by paranormal investigators and those who adhere to paranormal beliefs. Honesty is crucial in evaluating evidence that supports any claim. When examining evidence it is important that you are honest with yourself about any results of the examination. If the evidence contradicts the claim you should then restructure your belief in that claim. Replicability ensures the safeguard against any possibility of coincidence, fraud, or error. If the evidence for a claim is based on experimental result, or the evidence offered in support of a claim can be logically explained as coincidental, then it is necessary to repeat any experiments. Sufficiency of evidence in support of a claim must be adequate to establish the truth of a claim. The stipulations are: The burden of proof for any claim rests on the claimant. Extraordinary claims demand extraordinary evidence. Evidence based upon an authority and/or testimony is always inadequate for any paranormal claim. Just because someone follows all six of these steps, does not mean that the claim is true. If someone examines all of the evidence today does not guarantee that there will not be new and disproving evidence tomorrow, but it does give them good reasons for believing a claim. Part of being an adult is being responsible for accepting certain facts that knowledge is tentative. People might be required to change their beliefs if the evidence being provided to them proves them wrong. Being skeptical means, to believe if and only if the evidence warrants. GHOST HUNTING TOOLS When deciding what tools we need for ghost hunting investigations we developed a procedure in order to deal with certain situations. After all, it does not make sense to carry 100 pounds worth of equipment when 10 pounds will do. We broke each situation down into 2 categories. The first category is a preliminary investigation which entails making an observation that can be used to promote a more scientific investigation. Usually we will take a digital voice recorder, a tape recorder with external microphone, a miniDV camera, flashlights, and walkie-talkies. Not to mention the accessories needed for each piece of kit. The second category is a scientific investigation which entails a developed scientific experiment used to gather data. Obviously at this point the needed equipment depends on the experiment(s). During this period we will have the equipment in the first category including the experiments we will be conducting. This way we can record our process for later review. It does not take a lot of gear in order to conduct a ghost hunt investigation. Other times you might require even less depending on your own preferences. So, try to avoid spending hundreds of dollars on gear that you will later find out you do not need. CONCLUSION The most important piece of equipment is your brain and how you decide to use it during an investigation. For some people it will require a lot of practice to use the critical thinking steps that are listed above. The steps will allow you to then understand other ghost hunting groups that you will encounter. A little bit of thinking goes a long way. Otherwise, you truly do not need a lot of equipment to conduct a ghost hunting investigation. Until you understand any science that is related to ghost hunting you can keep your equipment level down to a minimum. Your bank account will thank you for it later.		HOME MISSION STATEMENT PRIVACY POLICY ABOUT US GHOST HUNTING ARTICLES GHOST HUNTING EXPERIMENTS GHOST HUNTING INVESTIGATIONS GHOST HUNTING PRODUCT REVIEWS GHOST HUNTING PODCAST CONTACT US HELP WANTED LINKS
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