Ghost Hunting appears to becoming increasingly popular these days and it normally comes in a couple of guises in the UK. The first being a group comprising mediums and paranormal investigators and often having a degree of apparently legitimate investigation. The second is often a purely commercial enterprise with the aim of hopefully providing some spooky thrills, at the same time as relieving the participants of their cash. Naturally there is often a combination of the two approaches as well.

The second approach is partially forgivable in at least they can truthfully claim to be ignorant of the nature of their entertainment, after all ghosts don't have feelings do they?

The ghost hunting mediums on the other hand should in my opinion be ashamed of themselves and really ought to know better if they don't include rescue as part of the visit. Finding entertainment with those spirit in distress and needing help is to me like selling tickets to a hospital accident and emergency department, for thrill seekers to gawp at those needing assistance without ever considering that they even need help. If mediums have any inkling that there are earthbound spirits involved then surely compassion would indicate the path to follow?

This then goes to the heart of the problem in that many mediums are in fact staggeringly ignorant of the nature of earthbound spirits, though this being usual might in itself be excusable, but who do they really believe they are dealing with? Ghostly environmental imprints? possibly, but if the activity doesn't fit that particular pattern then you're normally dealing with earthbound spirits, and this then falls right back to everything contained in the rest of this site. You're dealing with those who for whatever reason never made it over into the spirit realms, therefore they either require help to get there, or perhaps need removing if causing problems.

Do the ghost hunters offer such assistance? do they have the requisite expertise at hand during their hunt / investigation? I'd really like to think so but I've seen little evidence to support that idea so far. The other problem concerns the ignorance displayed by the owners of 'haunted' establishments who wouldn't wish to lose their ghostly attraction and money spinner.

Having assisted a number of earthbound spirits during rescue work over the years, I couldn't imagine ever selling tickets for people to entertain themselves with their condition, to me it's just plain wrong if you're dealing with those needing help, and any negative spirits involved are encouraged in their activity by the interest shown in them, which is never a good thing.

Update 19/02/05

My wife was recently offered a ticket to attend one of these events held overnight at an old pub with a friend, one of the mediums present who was entrusted with their wellbeing decided during one of the séances that it would be a good idea to enter trance and answer questions from the group he was with.
Unfortunately this meant that he had abdicated his responsibility to keep an eye on things as his consciousness is removed to the point where he doesn't even remember what was said and done while trancing.
Things further deteriorated when his 'guide' sidestepped awkward questions from my wife and offered to enter the body of a volunteer, (any alarm bells ringing?)
My wife naturally put herself forward confidently as she has trance experience and plenty of practice with dealing with bogus guides and negative spirits, though conveniently he didn't appear to notice her and instead chose someone else who hadn't the first clue about the nature of what was going on, and was therefore no threat to him.
Enough to say that this was all thankfully unsuccessful and the volunteer snapped out of it when he appeared to have been shoved forwards / stumbled, though understandably he was rather shaken. I can only assume his own guides had a hand in preventing things from going any further.
The medium in question presented himself as an 'international' medium who serves churches and runs circles etc, though to be fair to the event organisers he was a last minute stand in for someone else.

The event organiser later handed out three ouija boards for people to experiment with and people were free to disperse and practice under loose supervision. It was explained that the protection invoked at the beginning of the evening's proceedings was extended to those using the boards, which is in my opinion a somewhat naive belief at best.
All in all this could have turned out quite badly and in fact there was one particularly nasty spirit there, who was acknowledged by the medium yet left there to continue whatever unpleasant activities they'd previously enjoyed.
This is not to say that these events are inherently dangerous as even on this occasion there were other mediums there who were rather more competent, but it does unfortunately highlight that there is the potential for those who attend to come to harm, while little assistance is given to those spirit who need it depending on the calibre and outlook of the mediums present.

I really don't wish to be too cynical and disparaging about these events, but I do have serious reservations about their format and the competence of some of the mediums who are entrusted to run them.

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