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The Horrors, Haunts and Havocs of Aberrant Earth Investigators Manual
I investigate allegations of paranormal activity, but I’m no commercialized ghost hunting geek. You won’t find me on a second rate TV show acting like a dork over some kicked up dust I’ve mistaken for an apparition. I don’t have an internet site and I’m not looking for headlines or to profit from my work. I’m a consummate professional devoted to ridding the world of harmful horrors, haunts and havocs. In the past six years, I’ve fought specters, lycanthropes, cultists, zombies and vampires, battled malignant spirits, violent poltergeists and a man-eating plant. I’ve exorcized more demons from houses and people than I can remember. But I’m just one over worked dude. While the prima donnas go grabbing headlines and getting book deals, I’m out there on the front line of Aberrant Earth. Aberrant Earth! That’s what we paranormal investigators call the spooky side of the world that most normal people don’t see (or want to see). Nowadays most people can’t comprehend a world with magic and monsters. People today even think the witch burnings of past centuries were a tragic mistake. They laugh at exorcisms, condemn New Agers and scoff at faith healing. If you’re reading this I know you’ve got an interest in the paranormal. So read on! You might be skeptical. I don’t expect you to believe in the paranormal without some proof. . . Like you, I’m a child of the new millennia. I grew up with television, movies and the Internet making light of the supernatural. Like you, I refused to accept the possibility of paranormal activity, but on a trip to London with my girlfriend in the fall of 2000 my life was changed forever. Here’s how I learned the truth . . . After a few drinks, Amanda and I were walking down the street to our hotel when a creature leapt from the shadows and pulled the love of my life into an alley. There was little I could do, but stare in horror. I will forever see in my mind’s eye the creature’s face with its pale, taunt skin and ghastly grin. I remember looking into Amanda’s terrified eyes . . . they were pleading for help, but there I stood petrified with terror. I watched the monster’s razor sharp teeth tear her beautiful white skin and consume choice pieces of flesh. Afterward, the creature passed the remains of her lifeless body back to me and vanished into the shadows. Why the creature left me alive has puzzled me to this day? The police blamed the attack on a pack of wild dogs and discounted my description of the fiend because of my “drunkeness.” I returned to America mentally confused and emotionally devastated. I dropped out of school and may have ended up in a psycho ward if not for Mr. Jeremy Clark. He had read about my tragic encounter in the London Times newspaper and he’d come to America to interview me. At first I thought he was a quack, but then I began to believe. Jeremy Clark was a complicated man. He had the demeanor of an intellectual, but despite his age he moved with the practiced grace of a martial arts expert. His spectacles sat on a hawk-like nose and his white hair was slightly askew. Dressed in a rumpled, brown suit and carrying a leather briefcase he could have passed easily as a business traveler, but seemed more likely to be a college professor. He was actually a paranormal investigator and a hunter of horrors, haunts and havocs. At first I thought he was crazy. He explained his family had been hunting the supernatural for many generations in Europe. He outlined for me the haunted history of man. He told me of his ancestors, famous witch hunters who traveled the Old World burning witches, staking vampires, performing exorcisms and to a lesser extent tracking down lycanthropes. He believed every era of humanity had to deal with its own unique horrors, haunts and havocs. He was especially concerned for people in the modern world. He explained, most people in the modern world lived their life in blissful ignorance. They were content to accept rationale explanations for the most irrational of all occurrences. But ignorance is no protection for those unfortunates who find themselves in the wrong place, at the wrong time, facing abominations too terrible for words. Those people, so confident that their world is a rational place, will have their reality torn asunder as they are exposed to the preternatural world. Most will die or go insane, those few who survive will learn the truth of Aberrant Earth. I knew that I had seen the world of Aberrant Earth in that London alleyway. Jeremy asked me to become an investigator and help him protect others from the horrors, haunts and havocs of the world. What else could I do? I agreed, provided we hunt the thing that killed Amanda. The next day I was on a plane, feeling like I was about to begin a new life. When we arrived in London, I realized Jeremy had come not only for information, but to save me from a slow slide to self-destruction. I met the members of his team, they were all people who had lost loved ones to the paranormal and had been rescued from addiction or insanity by Jeremy. I trained to be an investigator and together we hunted the creature that took Amanda’s life. After a long and tedious search we found the creature’s lair in a London Subway. We destroyed it and saved another girl in the process. She too joined our team. Once you know the truth, no light will ever seem bright enough to dispel the darkness. Horrors, haunts and havocs are all around subsisting on those who stumble upon them. Twisted things of evil purpose, dwelling in the shadows hidden on the fringes of our society just out of sight. Waiting . . .ever hungry, hoping to meet the unprepared, unsuspecting victim who’ll not even put up a fight. There are monsters in the closet and under the bed, lurking in the basement and the attic. The woods are filled with dangerous red eyes watching from between the branches. Evil cults and religious fanatics practice dark ceremonies and make human sacrifices to gods too terrible to name. Serial killers, fascist movements and mad scientists abound, but the average person ignores their prevalence and it falls to the investigator of the paranormal to rectify the situations. Next time you look at the back of a milk carton, wonder at the fate of all those missing persons and know that you right now have the opportunity to prevent another tragic loss. If you desire to help in the struggle against these preternatural Evils then read on because I have gathered the basics of what you’ll need to know here in this manual. The world needs your help. . . You might think I’m someone special, but I’m just an ordinary person. There is nothing extraordinary about me. I cannot use magic. I’m just a guy doing a job that someone has to do, and sadly, there’s not enough of us in this world fighting the paranormal. Innocents are being needlessly harmed, because of a lack of trained investigators. Investigators are normal people who are little a braver than the rest. We can’t use magic and have no special powers. We survive by our skill, wits and a little bit of luck. It’s okay to be scared, but you can’t let your fear paralyze you for longer than a few seconds. If not for the paranormal investigator, the preternatural world would bleed over into mainstream society. The public is not ready for the truth, society has become accustomed to a certain security and we perform a necessary service. Be careful. The horrors, haunts and havocs we hunt are insidiously cunning and diabolically evil. They will kill you if they can. Many of these entities still remember times when the world was filled with their kind and humanity tremble in fear. Investigators are ordinary, mundane people. We can only learn to perform ordinary feats, set traps and learn the knowledge commonly available to the world. We cannot manipulate mana and therefore cannot use any of the extraordinary skills found in the world and used by the horrors, haunts and havocs we hunt. There is no avoiding shock. No matter how many times you see something terrifying you’re never going to become desensitized to it. Shock causes you to hesitate or freeze up before you can act. It occurs the first time that you see a specific creature or grisly scene while on the investigation. The length of time you are affected depends on how horrible the thing or situation that you’re viewing is. It’s in those few seconds that most investigators get killed. Some people are born with an ability that allows them to manipulate mana. These person can do extraordinary feats, perform rituals and procedures, mix compounds, brew poisons, fashion items, scribe runes, draw glyphs and set traps. They can also cast spells, prayers and powers or learn all the knowledge commonly available to the world. You can’t trust people who use magic. They’ve got their own agenda. Don’t let them join your team! Do a complete background check and consider removing them from the world if you find out they are involved in any questionable activity. Some people have gained special powers and abilities. See normal people can breath air, walk on two legs and use their hands for lots of things, but when people start breathing water, flying or growing tentacles something is wrong. These people go beyond what they should normally be able to do. They are called “supernatural.” Stay aware from the supernaturals, they are worse than magic using people. Investigators often form teams. Hunting alone is a dangerous proposition, one person is no match for the paranormal; a group of people may not enough unless they are well-balanced and complement each other. The best teams include persons with a broad mix of skills. These teams draw people from various occupations to have a broad knowledge base. Much of paranormal hunting depends on careful research and planning. Demons and other supernatural creatures are powerful and many require special ceremonies to defeat. While every group needs its toughs, many of the battles are fought with the mind and won with knowledge and careful planning. Assemble your team with caution. These are the people on whom your life will depend. Most teams are democratically organized. They are generally run by an appointed leader who is chosen either by a group of senior members often called the executive board or by general elections from all full members. New members often undergo a period of training and probation. Following this period they become full members of the group. After a period of time they will become senior members and group leaders. They will also have the opportunity to fulfill other group positions. Teams need to be able to identify themselves. They normally choose unique names for their team. Names can often indicate what the team is like. Names like Ghost Research, Examination And Termination (G.R.E.A.T.) And Demons And Monsters Neutralized (D.A.M.N.) signify very commercialized teams that work over an entire region. These groups may have twenty or more active members and teams are assigned according to member specialties. They have large resources and top of the line equipment. Names including localities, Millville Monster Patrol and Greater Palisades Ghost Hunters, indicate more community oriented groups. These groups generally have ten to twenty active members who are drawn from the local community. They work mostly in their immediate area and bring a special understanding of the community to their investigations. Their knowledge of local occult history is often astounding. Some groups take very unique names, such as Icky, Ichor Investigations or Tactical Tentacle Removal. These groups are wild cards. Their names may seem silly or over-the-top, but their results often speak for themselves. They are generally small teams (less than 10 members) of highly specialized or experienced investigators. They don’t have large budgets, but can get the job done.
Advertising Services Groups need to make themselves know so they can be contacted by people in need. Advertising is very important. Groups should take out ads in local newspapers, place ads on local cable television and hang signs on public bulletin boards. They should set up or join Internet forums and discussion groups. Hunting the supernatural is not a competitive enterprise; all investigators need to work together. Teams need to communicate and share information. Sometimes multiple teams will come together to fight a particularly powerful or pervasive antagonist. Paranormal investigators have to make a living so all of us have a day job. Some occupations are more suited to hunting than others. The listed skills represent the “core” of the occupation and persons must know all the core skills of the occupation. People are not limited to only learnin’ the core skills of their occupation so they may have picked up a few more skills. After they’ve been hunting awhile, they can pursue a different occupation or learn more skills so long as they can find a teacher. There is no limit to the number of occupations a person can pursue during their lives. Antiquarians are collectors of historical relics. They frequent curiosity shops, antique auctions, estate sales, junk yards and even old book stores. Their specialty is the appraisal and identification of obscure items. A team is often required to date items and understand their place in history. Feats: dodge I, willpower I Knowledge: appraise, bandage, fine arts, history, literature, rumors, weapon Archeologists study past civilizations. They travel to exotic places or remote areas, often trampling through desert sand or thick jungle growth, in an effort to find lost cities or temples where they will conduct excavations in an effort to unearth the past. Feats: dodge I, parry I, willpower I Knowledge: appraise, bandage, climb I, fine arts, geology, history, repair, swim I, throw, weapon Aristocrats are people of wealth, influence and power. They are often a member of the ruling class, the corporate elite or the idle rich. Aristocrats are marked by their privileged demeanor as they attempt to convey dignity and poise. They often have important economic connections and a keen understanding of political dynamics. Feats: willpower I Knowledge: appraise, bandage, climb I, fine arts, swim I, weapon Artists are creative individuals who see the world in their own special way. Whether they are painters, sculptures or pursue some non-traditional artistic endeavor, they have a certain intellectual freedom that separates them from general society. Knowledge: appraise, bandage, climb I, fine arts, swim I, weapon Athletes condition their physical bodies by participation in athletic endeavors. They are diverse sportsmen and are generally skilled in various competitions. Athletes compete on football fields, fencing strips, gymnasium floors, sandlot ballparks, boxing rings, wrestling mats and many other places. Every team needs members who excel in physical endeavors. Feats: dodge I, parry I, strength I Knowledge: appraise, balance, bandage, climb I, fine arts, leap, swim I, weapon Astrologists are attuned to the movement of heavenly bodies as they relate to the human condition. They understand hidden truths and may be able to glimpse the future within the stars. They often work in the circus or on the boardwalk. Their knowledge of astronomical events is equivalent to that of the best astronomer. Feats: willpower I Knowledge: appraise, astronomy, bandage, climb I, fine arts, occult, swim I, weapon Authors are a dynamic group of professional individuals who convey information through the written word. There are many kinds of authors, including journalists, playwrights, critics and novelists. They often have keen powers of observation and the ability to organize and convey their thoughts. Feats: dodge I, parry I, willpower I Knowledge: appraise, bandage, climb I, fine arts, history, literature, mechanics, repair, swim I, throw, weapon Burglars are criminals who specialize in entering structures. They can shimmy up a drainpipe to an open window or use deft fingers to pick a lock on the door. Burglars are often agile and dextrous, but also cunning and cautious. They generally have a good knowledge of the criminal element in their area of operation. A burglar’s ability to get into places can be a great help to any team. Feats: dodge I, parry I Knowledge: appraise, bandage, climb I, crime, fine arts, pick locks, swim I, weapon Clergy are the leaders of the church and pillars in the community. Their faith is strong and their words are heard as an inspiration to all. Although there are many different religions, most clergy are congenial persons who seek to bring people together in worship. Feats: willpower I Knowledge: bandage, climb I, history, occult, spiritsense, swim I, theology, weapon Coroners are government officials who examine dead bodies and in some jurisdictions the scene of the crime. Their specialized knowledge can often help piece together events and provide clues as to what the team is facing. A good coroner can identify an adversaries attack methods. Feats: willpower I Knowledge: appraise, bandage, biology, chemistry, embalm, fatal blow, forensics, spiritsense, splint, theology, weapon Doctors want to cure sickness and heal injury. Physicians, surgeons, midwives and even those who specialize in herbal remedies, leeches or phrenology have all laid claim to the title doctor. Medicine can take many forms, but the goal is always to help the patient. Feats: willpower I Knowledge: appraise, bandage, biology, climb I, fatal blow, medicine, splint, study, swim I, surgery, throw, weapon Domestic servants fulfill household functions. They may be maids, butlers, gardeners or cooks. Domestic servants generally know what’s really going on in a household. As members of the team they will be able to quickly deal with other domestics. Feats: willpower I Knowledge: appraise, bandage, climb I, fine arts, rumors, swim I, throw, weapon Entertainment is a timeless profession. Beaters in a stone-age drum line, musicians with electric guitars, actors on a day-time soap or band members in an orchestra, all lay claim to the occupation of entertainer and each has the potential to amass fame and fortune. Entertainers can be a good source of funding for an investigative team. They can also use their fame to open doors and appease authorities. Feats: willpower I Knowledge: appraise, bandage, climb I, fine arts, swim I, weapon Farmers work from dawn to dusk scratching a living from the soil. They are often hard working people with earthy values. Their overalls may be dirty, but they are good, god fearing folk, who will lend a hand to help. Farmers often amass a large amount of down home learning and folklore common to their region. Feats: willpower I Knowledge: animal handling, biology, climb I, geology, rumors, survival, swim, throw Gangsters are more than common criminals, because their connection to organized crime gives them a vast support network. They are often toughs from the bad side of town, who know how to fight. More importantly they understand the criminal world and know how to skirt the law. Feats: critical shot I, dodge I, parry I, quick shot I, waylay I Knowledge: appraise, bandage, binding, climb I, crime, fatal blow, investigation, law, swim I, weapon Historians chronicle and catalogue the past. They often teach at the local university or work in the library. Some historians enjoy going out into the field, but most spend their time researching documents and other sources. They are a fountain of information. Feats: willpower I Knowledge: appraise, bandage, climb I, fine arts, history, investigation, literature, swim I, teach, weapon Hobos are afflicted with the wanderlust. They hitch rides on trains, trucks and sometimes plane, living the carefree life of a wanderer. Traditionally they carried their belongings wrapped up in a handkerchief and tied to a pole, but these days they’re more likely to have a knapsack and a bottle of spring water. Feats: willpower I Knowledge: appraise, bandage, climb I, fine arts, navigation, swim I, weapon Law officers are known by many titles: police officer, copper, sheriff, security guard and detective. Their task is to enforce the laws of their jurisdiction and they are all part of a good ol’ boys system. Having a law officer on the team makes interactions with local authorities go much smoother. Feats: critical shot I, dodge I, parry I, quick shot I, waylay I Knowledge: bandage, binding, climb I, crime, fatal finish, investigation, law, swim I, weapon Lawyers serve the law and to this end have created a jargon of legalese that the common man is loath to understand. A lawyer’s pay is proportional to his ability to twist facts and manipulate words to create truth from falsehood and conceal guilt beneath innocence. Feats: dodge I, willpower I Knowledge: appraise, bandage, climb I, fatal blow, forgery, investigation, law, literature, swim I, weapon Magicians entertain with slight-of-hand and subtle trickery. Illusions and phantasms are the tricks of their trade. They’ll dazzle with impossible feats and leave people wondering if magic could possibly be real. Slight of hand could be useful to the team, but if a magician starts to perform real magic take heed and be wary. Magic is a force of awesome power and it takes a strong will not to be corrupted. Feats: dodge I Knowledge: escape, fine arts, performance, pick locks, occult, slight of hand Parapsychologist have developed specialized scientific techniques for identifying paranormal activity. They measure electromagnetic forces by using EMF meters and use infrared imaging, special thermometers and photography. A new addition to their techniques is the use of digital recording devices to capture EVPs. Parapsychologists often make up the core of a scientific investigation team. Feats: willpower I Knowledge: appraise, bandage, climb I, fine arts, occult, spiritsense, swim I, weapon Politicians trade on promises in an effort to wield governmental power. They conceal their own agenda underneath the politician’s facade and not even their own constituents know their true goals. Politicians generally have good social skills and present a likeable face to the world. Feats: willpower I Knowledge: appraise, bandage, climb I, history, politics, swim I, weapon Prostitutes exchange sex for money. They often live in the seedy section of town and have contact with the criminal element of the community. Prostitutes are privy to many secretes and they make a good contact for the team. Feats: willpower I Knowledge: appraise, bandage, bindings, climb I, fine arts, repair, rumors, swim I, weapon Private investigator are often hired to find missing persons or to reveal a cheating lover. They are often suave and debonair. They have connections all across town and for the right price they will provide the truth giving all the grisly details and graphic photos too. Feats: critical shot I, dodge I, parry I, quick shot I Knowledge: appraise, bandage, climb I, crime, fatal finish, law, rumors, swim I, throw, weapon Most professors teach at the university, where they are members of the elite academia and specialize in specific areas of learning. Associating with a legitimate professor will give your team academic credibility. Feats: willpower I Knowledge: appraise, bandage, biology, climb I, history, swim I, teach, theology, weapon Scientists search for answers by experimentation and observation. A naturalist, chemist, microbiologist, oceanographer are only separated by the name of their particular discipline. Together they will one day explain the mysterious of the universe, but does the world really want to know? Feats: willpower I Knowledge: appraise, bandage, biology, chemistry, climb I, mathematics, swim I, weapon Soldiers or other ex-military make good support personnel especially if the team is going to face a powerful demon with a cult following or some other organized preternatural opposition. Some investigation teams are more like military units with all members receiving combat training. Feats: willpower I Knowledge: appraise, bandage, bindings, climb I, fine arts, repair, splint, swim I, weapon Students seek to learn, attending class and listening to their teacher’s lecture. They study for tests and hope to achieve a passing grade, but some students enjoy the social aspects of school more than the book learning. Feats: willpower I Knowledge: appraise, bandage, biology, climb I, history, swim I, teach, theology, weapon Every investigation is different and challenging in its own right, but solid research and planning is necessary every time. Along with this preparation an investigator needs good equipment and proper training. Investigators must determine if there is an actual haunting. Not all hauntings are alike, and they may exhibit a variety of phenomena. Some hauntings feature a single phenomenon - such as a particular door slamming shut that occurs repeatedly - while others consist of many different phenomena, ranging from odd noises to full-blown apparitions. The following is a partial list of phenomena that might indicate a haunting:
Unexplained noises such as footsteps, knocks, banging, rapping, scratching and sounds of something being dropped. Sometimes these noises can be subtle and other times they can be quite loud.
Doors, cabinets and cupboards opening and closing when people are not in the room. In minor hauntings, this phenomena does not occur when persons can directly observe, instead the objects appear moved when people return to the room.
Dogs, cats or other pets behave strangely. Dogs may bark at something unseen, cower without apparent reason or refuse to enter a room they normally do. Cats may seem to be "watching" something cross a room. Animals have sharper senses than humans, and many investigators think their psychic abilities might be more finely tuned as well.
Cries, whispers and, on occasion, muffled voices, can be heard. This phenomenon gains more credibility if more than one person hears or sees the same thing at the same time.
Unexplained cold or hot spots in certain areas. Cold spots are classic haunting symptoms, but any instance of a noticeable variance in temperature without a discernable cause could be evidence.
Unexplained odors in certain areas. The distinct fragrance of a perfume or cologne or more commonly foul odors permeating the area with no discernable cause will indicate a paranormal presence, most often demonic in nature.
Electrically powered items will turn on and off. These events are seldom seen actually occurring, but commonly the lights, TVs and radios are switched on or off when no one is in the room. On rare occasions the lights may flicker or even turn on or off with people in the room. This usually indicats a powerful presence.
Unexplained shadows seen out of the corner of the eye. Fleeting shapes and shadows with vaguely human forms may indicate human-like presences. Less distinguishable or smaller shapes or shadows may indicate animal hauntings or demonic entities.
Feelings of being touched when no one is physically present. People feel something brush past them, touching their hair, a hand on the shoulder, a gentle poke or a hard shove.
Items disappearing and reappearing in the same location. Items placed in specific locations cannot be found, but then reappear hours or days later where they were supposed to be. Unexplained writing appears on paper or walls.
Unexplained hand or footprints. Often these are made of water, dirt or mud, but in some instances they have been in blood.
Doors, cabinets and cupboards opening and closing in front of people. When a haunting begins to escalate doors, cabinets and cupboards will open and close in plain sight. This indicates a dangerous haunting.
Moving or levitating objects such as dinner plates sliding across the table, pictures flying off walls, doors slamming shut with great force and furniture sliding across the floor.
Apparitions appearing as quasi-corporeal entities without real physical form. These will generally just show past events and will dissipate if disturbed by the investigator.
Quasi-corporeal entities, such as wraiths, ghosts and specters, appear. These dangerous creatures have a physical form and will often attack people. These assaults are often limited to scratches, slaps and hard shoves, but people have been seriously injured or killed by manifestations.
All full-blown demonic manifestations will include all of the above and a demon with physical form and various powers. Only a highly trained group should investigate a demonic manifestation. When I was young, I loved the blood pumping excitement of being on the hunt . . . of trailing the horror, haunt or havoc to its lair and confronting the beast within. Oftentimes my team and I were unprepared. Some investigators took greater risks than were necessary and they paid for their zealousness with their lives. As I got older, I realized how important it was to carefully examine the clues and puzzle out how to defeat the horror, haunts or havocs before engaging it. Once I get the initial report, I spend ample time researching the history of the area and the background of the people involved. Every investigation begins with the discovery of a strange event. It’s often a subtle unexplained event. A disappearance, a strange murder, a noxious odor, a series of car crashes on the same stretch of road, odd noises in the graveyard, waking up at the same hour each night, an outbreak of contagion and so forth. Years ago investigators read about questionable events in the newspaper, but in this modern age of information you can discover horrors, haunts and havocs in many ways ranging from the tabloids, to television, to the Internet. Most teams advertise their services to the public in some manner. Webs sites are a must! Ads in a local newspaper or on cable access television can also generate contacts. Many calls are false alarms that can be explained by mundane means (a leaky faucet or scratching branch), a few calls will be hoaxes, but eventually the legitimate call will come. That’s why every call must be taken seriously. After discovering the phenomena, I research the background of the area thoroughly before arriving on site. More often than not horrors, haunts and havocs arise from tragic events taking place in the local area. Establishing this background is very important as it focuses the search and guides the investigation. Members of the team with various research skills (such as geology, history, investigation, theology, etc) will gather up all possible clues and share them with other team members in a roundtable discussion before arriving on site. Most teams will meet at their headquarters, someone’s house or even at a diner to go over the details of their research. Sometimes circumstances do not permit enough time for a formal meeting and in these situations there is always an impromptu sharing of information even if its in the car before entering the site. When my team gets on site we interview the people involved before we make any search of the premises. It’s very important to establish a firm relationship with the people affected. They must trust your team; be reassuring and treat them with respect. When interviewing the subjects you must be very careful. Exposure to paranormal activity places people under great emotional strain. I cannot stress enough that normal people will seek any rational explanation possible to avoid believing in the paranormal. They may become agitated or violent if confronted. I recommend keeping your theories a secret. If you try to explain the paranormal during an investigation you may provoke the people you are trying to help. It’s not uncommon for people to become terrified and try to stop an investigation in the middle, especially if they discover you have guns or other weapons. Sometimes, the very people you are trying to help may report you to the authorities as trespassers, or worse. Following the interviews many of the neighbors and other extraneous persons not directly connected to the paranormal crisis should be sent away. Next you must conduct a thorough search of the area. When searching the area, look thoroughly in all places that could contain possible information. Read diary entries and letters very carefully. If you find objects that interest you more than others, they will likely be important. Hauntings are often connected to items. Modern investigators use various devices to sense for paranormal activities, but these devices are not always necessary. For example, while thermometers can measure the exact temperature of a cold spot they are not necessary to determine the existence of temperature change which can be easily felt by the investigator. Compasses work as well as EMF meters and are not as easily influenced by home electrical wires. Similarly, drowsing rods can do everything a GMF meter can do except measure exact deviations. Further, all modern equipment can be easily disrupted if the power source is compromised. More important than modern tools are your instincts. You must trust your instincts! Humanity is sensitive to the paranormal. We have genetic defense mechanisms that people in the modern world have not developed. You must develop and use these instincts while searching the area. Don’t forget the physical surroundings and forensic evidence. Look for tracks on the ground which can often identify whether you’re facing a beast, humanoid or quasi-corporeal entity. Check the body or the pattern of blood splatter to determine the cause and time of death. Cultists use guns, serial killers prefer blades, wild beasts have teeth, monsters have claws and demons can kill a thousand different ways. Finally, you must not overlook the obvious. Magical writings and scientific notations are often placed in codes. Look for the solution to the code, but don’t hesitate to try to break them on your own. Team members should learn different language skills, especially Latin, and bring along a dictionary to translate old writings. After the interviews and search of the area the information discovered will most likely identify the general type of paranormal activity. There are many possibilities, a madman serial killer, a vengeful spirit haunting, a monster from eons ago, visitors from other realms, a demon summoned by cult members or something more insidious. Now is the time to establish a solid plan to destroy your paranormal adversary before having the final show down. The confrontation is the most dangerous part of the investigation and it must be carefully planned. Most paranormal entities are not hurt by normal weapons and many demons can only be un-summoned by specific ceremonies or activities. Engaging an entity without a solid plan incorporating all the facts has caused the death (or worse) of many investigators. Only after you have prepared to the best of your ability should you think about confronting the paranormal entity. I have found it best to lure the entity into a trap of your own setting. This way you have the home field advantage and are fighting the monster on your terms. It’s more dangerous to pursue the entity into its lair, but often you have no choice. In these cases, proceed cautiously. You must check carefully for traps and vermin; always watch your back for henchmen, servants or pets. With a lot of preparation and a little luck, you’ll survive and keep your sanity. Paranormal investigators rely on a number of special tools. Some of these were used years ago, but many are the product of modern science. Most of these items are easily available and can be used by anyone. When a device requires special skill to operate a note is made in the description. Many people use animals to detect the presence of spirits. Most animals can sense supernatural activity more readily than humans. Dogs and to a lesser extent cats have been used throughout history to investigate paranormal activity. The use of animals requires skill in animal handling. A barometer measures atmospheric pressure. Radical fluctuations in atmospheric pressure will often indicate paranormal activity. Sometimes a person will experience a tightness of the chest (not from a heart attack) or an unexplained feeling of claustrophobia. This is caused by an increase of atmospheric pressure due to paranormal activity. Paranormal investigators have used film to capture the images of horrors, haunts and havocs since the technology became available in the 1800s. Cameras are arguably the most important investigation tool because they preserve images of the paranormal event. Digital cameras are becoming more popular these days, but some people still carry film. Use of a camera to take viewable pictures of paranormal entities requires skill in photography. Candles provide more than a light source. Candles are a source of energy and some entities can readily harness this energy to interact with the world. Candles are often burned in churches (and other religious places) to provide energy to the spirits within allowing them to communicate. I’ve also used candle to detect movement of invisible entities. Spirits will cause slight breezes when they move and the flickering of candles detect these breezes. Electromagnetic disturbances will affect the needle in a compass. Since the use of mana (performing rituals or casting spells, prayers and powers) causes disturbances in the electromagnetic spectrum, the needle may shake or even spin in the presence of mana manipulation. The use of a compass requires skill in navigation. Drowsing or divining rods have been used since ancient times to sense energy flows. Traditionally, a forked branch or stick was used, but rods can also be made of metal bent in an "L" shape and held in each hand. When investigating paranormal activity the single rod will point at the paranormal activity, while the double “L” rods will cross while being held out to indicate the presence of paranormal activity. All hauntings are connected to mana energy. Drowsing and divining rods will identify a mana node or flows of mana energy. The use of drowsing or diving rods requires knowledge of the occult. People still use rods for the mundane purpose of indicating subterranean water or minerals. Investigators believe that the rods are drawn not to the water or minerals, but to the flow of mana energy that moves with the water or that collects in the ore. Electromagnetic field (EMF) meters measure fluctuations in the electromagnetic field. All spirits (and living people too because they have spirits inside) radiate slight electro-magnetic fields that can be detected by the field meter. The difficulty in using an EMF meter in the modern world is that many things affect the field meter including household electrical wiring, solar flares and radio waves. The user must be very careful not to achieve false positives. Only the trained observer can separate abnormal patterns which are tied to paranormal activity from mundane fields. An investigator must have knowledge of electronics and occult to properly use an electromagnetic field meter to detect paranormal activity. Background Magnetic Field 0-1.5 milliGauss Low-Level Magnetic Field 1.5-2.5 milliGauss Mid-Level Magnetic Field 2.5-10 milliGauss High-level Magnetic Field 10-20 milliGauss Extreme Magnetic Field 20+ milliGauss Most paranormal entities emit EMFs in the low-high ranges. Spikes in EMF meter higher than 20+ milliGauss often indicate the casting of spells, prayers or powers or the performance of ritual magic. Every investigator should have basic first aid training. A basic first aid kit including bandages and splints should be carried by every member of the team. At least one member of the team should have the skill to stitch up wounds and provide psychological counseling. No modern investigator should be without a flashlight and extra batteries. The flashlight must have a red filter fitted to the lens. No investigator uses a white light flashlight out in the field. Red lights will provide clear vision, but the lens will keep your night vision intact. The extra batteries are necessary because many entities have been proven to drain batteries. Geiger counters detect the presence of radiation and convey the amount by visual and audible indications. A geiger counter can allow investigators to confirm radiation levels which may correlate to paranormal activity. Approximately 11 pulses per minute is considered to be normal background radiation. Many types of paranormal activity leave behind mid-range levels of radiation. Some entities, especially those created by mad scientists or secret governmental programs, emit strong radioactive signatures. An investigator must have knowledge of electronics and chemistry to properly use a geiger counter. Geomagnetic field (GMF) meters measure magnetic fields generated by the earth itself. High readings on this device are indicative of mana nodes or flows of mana energy. The GMF meter is actually an expensive drowsing or divining rod. Mana nodes are concentrations of mana which are often associated with paranormal activity. Mana flows travel between these mana nodes creating an interconnected web. Often creatures will migrate along these mana paths or ley lines. An investigator must have knowledge of electronics and geology to properly use a geomagnetic field meter. Ion detectors measure the amount of positive and negative ions in the area. Ions can be generated from the decay of radioactive minerals, radon gas, fires, lightning, and evaporating water. Ions are also associated with storm activity; in fair weather at sea level, typical ion counts are about 400 negative and 500 positive ions per cubic centimeter. Before a storm, positive ions increase dramatically, but during the storm the negative ions increase. Paranormal activity has been proven to cause a dramatic shift in positive and negative ions. These detectors will confirm the presence of mana manipulation (such as the casting of spell, prayer and powers or the performing of rituals). A ion detector requires skill in electronics. Motion detectors give off an audible signal when their infrared beam is broken. Spirits and invisible entities are detected by infrared technology and motion detectors will reveal their presence. Film cameras were used extensively in the last century to capture paranormal activity. Most modern investigators use video cameras. Many of these have night mode enhancements which allow the capturing of images without additional light. Taking viewable motion pictures requires skill in photography. Powder is placed on the floor to detect footsteps. Spirits moving across the floor will cause minor disturbances in the powder. A physical being moving across the powder will leave clear footprints. Don’t use powder inside someone’s house without their permission. Investigators use various kinds of sound recording devices. The basic device is the tape recorder with an external microphone and high grade tapes. Parabolic microphones are often used because they amplify sounds that are a great distance away or below the range of hearing. Digital audio recorders are becoming much more popular as is the use of computers to filter sounds. The goal of using sound devices is to capture Electronic Voice Phenomena (EVP). Spirits often talk at a lower frequency than humans can hear or at a slower or faster speed. Manipulating the recordings, often with computers, will reveal the messages of spirits and other entities. Thermometers detect a change in temperature. Mercury tube thermometers have been used for centuries. Modern investigators use digital thermometers. Thermal scanners have become more popular because they can scan entire areas while looking for cold spots. Fluctuations in temperature have always been associated with paranormal activity. Certain areas that become inexplicitly colder or warmer should be thoroughly investigated. These areas will often indicate the location where the event initiating the haunting took place. Every investigator should carry two-way radios. It’s important to be able to call for help. Movement of paranormal entities and invisible beings often create subtle breezes. Investigators on a budget place wind chimes in areas of suspected paranormal activity. The wind chimes make noise when invisible entities pass by them alerting the investigators of the presence. Forget modern science, rationale thinking and the laws of physics. Einstein and his crew didn’t figure out anything new. String theory and atomists are only coming close to learning what ancient cultures already knew. . . There is an underlying force in the universe that permeates everything. This force is called mana. It connects all things and all thoughts and is responsible for most paranormal activities. Mana comes from the sky, sun, moon, stars and also from within the earth. Mana flows through the universe and across the surface of the earth and within every single living thing. Ancient civilizations (Babylon, Assyria, Egypt, Incans, Mayans and so forth) were inextricably linked to mana. They carefully constructed their cities to channel mana flows to promote the magical nature of their civilization. They used mana for healing, religion, war and every other aspect of their life. The ancient world was generally ruled by magic-using hereditary kings who inbred to ensure their offspring could use magic. These leaders ruled the earth for many millennia, up until the birth of Christ and the rise of the Christian faith. The fall of Rome caused a great upheaval. Mysticism, druidism and other magic-use philosophies clashed with the Christian Church and the Pope. The horror of the dark ages turned Europeans away from magic. The world changed to a place where people began to discount magic and put their faith in other things such as science and technology. Witch hunts, exorcisms and inquisitions drove magic users underground where they formed secret societies and heretical cults. Many of their descendants still wait for the day when their descendants will rule the world again. The industrial revolution ushered in the modern age and almost everyone excepted the death of magic. Anti-magic sentiment became so strong, most people alive today do not believe in magic and doubt that it ever existed. One of our many tasks as paranormal investigators is to thwart the plans of these arcane covens and dark societies. Many persons capable of manipulating mana are inherently evil and seek to abuse their power for personal gain. The force of mana permeates all things, running like unseen rivers through the landscape. Mana collects in certain areas saturating the plants, beasts, soil, minerals and ore. Modern day investigators call these places mana nodes, but throughout history they have been called many things by various civilizations. In medieval Europe mana nodes were called cairns, grounds or circles, in China they were called vessels, meridians or channels and the American Indians called them by various names translating to sacred earth places or simply lodges. Nodes exude a neutral energy when they form, but the nature of the energy will change with their environment. Nodes surrounded by good, wholesome activities will develop a positive demeanor, whereas nodes that are exposed to dark thoughts or violence develop negative energies. Positive nodes are called hallows. These nodes exude a tranquil, restorative energy that makes the world around them seem to sparkle. People entering hallows feel a peaceful reverence. Hallows are often used for religious buildings and cemeteries, hence the term hallowed ground. Negative nodes are called blights. These nodes exude a spooky, pernicious energy that makes the world seem a dark and dreadful place. The light in a blight is never bright enough and mists often collect around plants that have withered and died. Necromancy and harmful hauntings are common in blighted areas. All living things have spirits. A spirit gives form to the physical body. Spirits need a body to anchor them to this world and when the physical body dies most spirits will leave the world and go to a place between the realms. The place were spirits go is called the Void by some Investigators, but various cultures have their own names for the Void; Christians called it heaven or hell, Norse Vikings called it Valhalla, etc. The process begins after death; the body slowly decomposes and becomes unable to contain the spirit. The spirit slips from the body and goes into the Void. This process can take a few weeks and during that time the body may be affected by the forces of magic such as restoration or necromancy. Almost every culture has religious practices for removing the spirit from the body. This process is called embalming. No one wants a body with a spirit lying around that’s not going to be restored to life. It’s too easy in some places (especially near blighted nodes) for the spark of necromancy to enter the body and spontaneously raise the corpse as an undead. Sometimes when a person is killed in tragic circumstances or dies with a task undone the spirit becomes trapped in this world. These spirits can become ghosts or other forms of quasi-corporeal undead. Paranormal activity involves all sorts of activities that involve ectoplasm and apparitions. Modern investigators generally use the word ectoplasm to describe a milky white essence that often appears as shapeless mist or white-grey ovals called orbs. Both mists and orbs seem to float through the air. Some researchers use ectoplasm as a catch-all word for spiritual energy, others believe mists and orbs represent the presence of spirits themselves. Both views are erroneous, ectoplasm does not represent spiritual energy and orbs or mists do not indicate the presence of spirits. Ectoplasm is more properly described as visible mana flows. Orbs and mists are condensed flows of mana that become visible because of their active oscillation in the electromagnetic spectrum. Ecoplasm and the resulting orbs and mists represent paranormal activity or at least the manipulation of mana in the area. Ectoplasmic mists are extremely common in all forms of hauntings. Some researchers believe that the coalescing of mana flows (which create the white mists) is what allows apparitions to exist or facilitates most haunting. Ecoplasm, orbs and mists should not be confused with apparitions. Apparitions are defined images of past events that will act in a certain repetitive manner. Electronic Voice Phenomena (EVP) and the recording spirit voices has been around for nearly a century, but has recently become a major field of study on the cutting edge of paranormal research. Spirits often talk at a lower frequency than humans can hear. By enhancing the frequency of the sound recording the spirit’s voice can be rendered audible to the human ear. Sometimes spirits talk too fast or slow to be understood and the sound recording can be mechanically slowed or speeded up to reveal the spirit’s message. Spirit voices sometimes speak in short phrases and their sentences are often grammatically incorrect. They commonly use simplified language or even multiple languages during the same sentence. Sound recordings can be used to help the listener decipher the content. White Noise Most paranormal investigators believe electronic mediums (such as radio and televisions) allow haunts to convey messages more easily. Often investigators tune a radio between stations or a television to an unused channel so only the white noise is audible. The idea is that the background static provides an acoustic basis for the voices to communicate. Computers Computer manipulation plays a large part in the examination of EVP. By using computers the noise can be converted to files that can be speeded up, slowed down or otherwise manipulated to make the message audible. Repetitive hauntings and other spectral sightings are like video presentations. At certain times the past re-plays over and over again. Repetitive hauntings begin with a burst of ectoplasm (generally white mist) and then apparitions enter the area to replay a moment from history.
Apparitions are not spirits; they are simply reflections of history embedded in time by mana and have no real existence in the material world. They can’t hurt anyone in the material world and generally won’t even interact with those around them. Investigators should not disturb the paranormal sighting by touching or loud noises as this could make the haunting go away. Apparitions will generally stay confined to areas cloaked in the ectoplasmic mists. Some hauntings take place in an ecotoplasmic sphere where past events have their own solid form and existence. Opposing theories exist to explain these events: Paranormal purists insist these are simply powerful repetitive hauntings taking place in the physical world, while paranormal physicists explain the haunted mists by using a theory of slipping temporal dimensions. They believe people are partially entering into another temporal dimension in the multi-verse when they pass through the ectoplasmic mists. When an investigator ends up in the misty sphere, they are actually stuck in a place that is part the past and part present. Sometimes the landscape of the present will dominate and people can only see parts of the past landscape if they look real hard into the mist. Other times the past landscape almost completely supercedes the present. People and entities encountered while in the haunted mists will have solid forms. They will often interact with persons trapped in the reflection as if they were people in the past with whom they would have communicated. Often investigators find themselves playing parts in a macabre reenactment of the cause of the haunting. The best way to escape from the haunted mist is to go out the same way one entered. If escape is impossible, the person will have to ride out the haunting. Sooner or later the reflection of events will end and the trapped person will be standing in the present. Stay on paths or with persons who you encounter while in the haunted mists. Do not go too deep into the mists without some kind of guide or you could become lost forever. Mana manipulation and hauntings are closely connected to the electromagnetic and geomagnetic fields. Science has detected various energy patterns that seem to be influenced by astronomical objects such as the moon, sun and planets. Moon The moon affects the geomagnetic fields on the earth. It has the strongest effect during the periods of the new and full moon cycles. Mana flows and paranormal activity increases during these times. Sun The presence of the sun decreases negative mana energy. However, research has shown that the amount of paranormal activity increases during periods of heightened solar flare activity and geomagnetic activity in space. M class and X class flares are good sources of energy for the apparitions to use to manifest. Apparitions often draw energy from open flames (candles, lanterns and camp fires) and electrical sources (electrical appliances and batteries) to get the energy, but on days when the air is full of excess energy due to a solar storm or flare, they have a surplus of energy to tap into. The planets also have an effect on paranormal activity. When they draw close to the earth or are visible in the sky they cause various activities to occur more frequently. For example, Mars has often been associated with war and hauntings dealing with battle are more frequent when Mars is in the sky. Modern paranormal investigation is closely tied to an examination of electromagnetic fields. Many paranormal occurrences produce measurable electromagnetic waves. Investigators use EMF meters to examine and classify these electromagnetic disturbances. To understand electromagnetic theory it’s often easier to examine them as two separate fields: the electric field and the magnetic field. A non-zero electric field is produced by the presence of electrically charged particles and gives rise to the electric force; this is the force that causes static electricity and drives the flow of electric charge (electric current) in electrical conductors. The magnetic field, on the other hand, can be produced by the motion of electric charges, or electric current, and gives rise to the magnetic force associated with magnets. The term "electromagnetism" comes from the fact that the electric and magnetic fields generally cannot be described independently of one another. A changing magnetic field produces an electric field (this is the phenomenon of electromagnetic induction, which underlies the operation of electrical generators, induction motors, and transformers). Similarly, a changing electric field generates a magnetic field. Because of this interdependence of the electric and magnetic fields, it makes sense to consider them as a single, theoretically coherent entity. Light, as it turns out, is actually a propagating oscillatory disturbance in the electromagnetic field, i.e., an electromagnetic wave. Different frequencies of oscillation give rise to the different forms of electromagnetic radiation, from radio waves at the lowest frequencies, to visible light at intermediate frequencies, to gamma rays at the highest frequencies. Mana energy in the from of ectoplasm (mists and orbs) often appears as milky white merely because of their oscillation in the visible light spectrum. Some paranormal events can be explained by visitors from other worlds. The multi-verse is composed of countless inhabited worlds filled with beasts and beings, many of which are known to earth as fables. Elves, orcs, pythians, trolls, goblins and gremlins are all common creatures of folklore. Astonishingly many of these beings actually walked and still walk the earth. Some alien visitors are dangerous to humanity, while others seek only to survive long enough to return home. Other worldly beings can reach Earth by opening portals that allow them to step from their world onto earth in seconds. Some beings use interstellar ships to make the trek across the heavens. Investigators are often called to deal with aliens who have established bases on remote parts of our world. Investigators often use a rough method to classify paranormal entities, depending on the overall actions and goals of the entity. Some entities can earn multiple designations. Horrors: Horrors are entities that seek to impart terror. They do not seek to injure or hurt, but relish in the affect they have on innocents. Horrors will often appear to their victims. Haunts: Haunts are entities tied to a particular area or paranormal event that portrays the past. They are often repetitive hauntings with a lot of ectoplasmic activity. Havoc: Havocs are entities that seek to cause mayhem and general confusion. Poltergiests are common havocs. Havocs can be playful or pernicious. The following is a list of the more common horrors, haunts and havocs which an investigator will face. Apparitions are not spirits; they are simply reflections of history embedded in time by mana. They don’t have any physical form and you can almost see right through them. Apparitions are always completely white, but not wispy at all. They are quasi-corporeal, but have no real existence in the material world. They can’t hurt anyone in the material world and generally won’t even interact with those around them. Apparitions are usually only a side effect of paranormal activity. They will sometimes provide a clue as to the root cause of a haunting, but are not generally the reason for an investigation. Often apparitions will accompany a more powerful entity. Banshees are women who suffered great emotional pain during their lives, usually because of unrequited, lost or betrayed love. Their sorrow compounds, day after day, and fills them with a despondency that envelops their soul. In the end, they may take their own lives or die of a broken heart. Whatever the cause, death will not give them release from torment, but rather condemns them to eternity as an undead. Banshees are deeply entrenched in romantic notions of love and will repeat poetry, sing and dance through the night. Banshees are dangerous to men who cannot live up to their impossible romantic ideals. They are also dangerous to women who get in the way when they want a man. Demons are a manifestation of evil malevolence. Some demons are little more than deleterious clouds of reeking sin, others have red skin, bat-like wigs and walk on hoofed feet and some can even appear just like a normal person. A demon’s abilities and skills are as varied as their forms, but they all generally have a debility or other weakness to which they are particularly vulnerable. Though demons may have many variations they are united by the common intent of cosmic Evil. Ghosts are spirits that have become wispy quasi-corporeal entities. Their form is white flowing mist with a white central core. They generally haunt specific areas and have the power to become invisible. Gremlins are orange-skinned social creatures with pointy ears and beady, little, red eyes. They have a below average intellect, but are capable of speaking and understanding simple concepts. They generally live in small family units, and hide their homes within the homes of other beings. They can live happily in crawlspaces or unused attics or basements; sometimes they even make summer homes in chimneys and coal bins. Gremlins creep around houses after dark, stealing food and other supplies. Gremlins are tricksters who delight in playing pranks and have no understanding of when a joke goes too far. They throw rocks down at people passing below; set woodpiles to fall when someone removes a log; or cut the outhouse seat so the unsuspecting person falls into the trench. In technological realms, they place a skateboard at the top of the staircase or leave the kitchen cabinets open for people to bang their heads. A favorite prank is to balance the cookie jar on top of the refrigerator so when the door is opened the jar falls. While their antics are generally only mildly dangerous, some gremlins learn to use traps. Once they learn these pranks, they quickly exchange their less dangerous jokes for falling logs, man-catcher traps, trip ropes near cliffs, spiked pits dug on common trails and exploding boxes. Gremlins are attracted to machines and other devices. Though gremlins are not malicious, they often damage machines which then work in unexpected or harmful ways. For example, Gremlins may loosen the wings on airplanes or set traffic lights at intersections so that both directions are green. Hags are ornery old women who do not realize they are dead. They continue their existence as an undead, becoming increasingly bitter as they watch their loved ones pass on. In time, hags are alone in the world with greying hair and leathery skin. They watch the world from their windows, scowling dangerously and planning their retribution on their happy neighbors. Hag homes are easily recognized as blights. They are dilapidated houses with sagging porches, peeling paint, unkept lawns and overgrown shrubbery surrounded by weathered fences. They exude an aura of foreboding, fear and loneliness. People in the community pass these houses and laugh nervously. They may even ask each other, "I wonder if old so-and-so is still alive." They will not know she is looking down at them from her upstairs window eyes filled with hate. Hags want nothing more than to make the acquaintance of these new people, but they turn away knowing well the bitterness of future loss. Children should fear hags the most, for all hags hate their youth and innocence. Children don’t know what its like to grow old and be alone; they remind the hags of their own lost hopes and shattered dreams. Hags will kidnap children to torture and even eat them to hide the evidence of their deeds. Children must never enter a hag’s yard. Balls that accidentally go onto the property should be given up for lost. Trick-or-treating on Halloween is particularly dangerous as hags will often place large bowls of candy on their stoops, inviting unsuspecting children to their doom. Marynns are deep-water dwelling lesser beings. They have dark-blue skin tone with thick knobby scales. Their hands and feet are webbed. Their heads are narrow with large round fish eyes. They have sturdy jaws with many rows of sharp teeth. Their vast civilizations are built on the ocean floor and are primarily agricultural. Their cities are generally constructed of stone and include a huge central square dominated on one side by a large temple complex and on the other three sides by government and military buildings. Broad avenues radiate from the central square and contain the private residences of the community. Outside the city edge, which is usually marked by a low wall, are broad fields of sea plants grown for food. Stereotypical Marynn culture revolves around the religious worship of a city deity. These pious people gather each morning and evening in the square to pray as a community. Daily life revolves around pleasing their god and performing the various duties necessary to run the city and feed its populace. Tasks are assigned by religious leaders, work loads are shared and all property is communal. There are Marynns who do not dwell in the cities and are considered by their religious brethren as “godless ones.” Many have been banished from the cities, because of criminal activity or religious differences, but some end up as outcasts due to the accident of birth. These Marynn exist as nomadic hunter-gathers and are generally led by a charismatic leader who organizes the group as needed. Rarely these groups can become large enough to found their own city or to take control of an existing one through military means. These cities often begin as dictatorships, but over-time they may move to a religious theocracy which is the cultural norm. Poltergeists are spirits that have become wispy quasi-corporeal entities. Their form is white flowing mist with a dark central core. They generally haunt specific areas and have the power to become invisible. Poltergeists are generally havocs and sometimes horrors. Their primary motivation seems to be causing confusion. Reanimants are corpses that are animated by an infection, which activates the body’s muscles and nervous system after death. Outbreaks of the reanimating infection have been so popularized in Hollywood “zombie” movies that most people believe reanimants cannot possibly exist. The truth could not be further from the fact. Outbreaks are frequent and often require a team of investigators or quick military response to quarantine the area. Reanimants are not intelligent and do not remember their past lives. Reanimants moan constantly and can only speak short phrases. They are driven by an instinctual desire to consume living cranial tissue which contains the neurotransmitters they need to survive. This explains why reanimants often call out the word, "brains." Reanimant bodies continue to rot and, as time passes, appear more corpse-like and have less motor coordination. Older reanimants have mottled skin, shadowed eyes and blueish lips. Reanimants with constant food supplies can survive for up to one month, but eventually they will cease to function. Specters are terrifying entities of vengeance, always seen weeping bloody tears. They are formed from the loss of love, betrayal of friendships or other tragic circumstances. Specters remain in this world to harm those who injured them in life. Their vengeance will extend broadly and will include the friends, allies and descendants of those persons who wronged the specter. Specters will continue to attack through the ages, because they never forget or forgive and are forever tied to their moment of death. Vampyres are undead supernatural beings who consume the blood of the living. They are subconsciously rooted to their past and revere the age in which they lived. They dwell on the fringes of living society experiencing a desire for life, called the yearning. The yearning keeps vampyres connected to their humanity. If the memories of their life are replaced by an emptiness of the heart, the vampyre experiences perdition. Vampyres in perdition are terrible to behold, because they often become vicious killers. To ward off the effects of Perdition, vampyres retain the dress, behaviors, mannerisms and beliefs of their lives. Some people are bad and that’s all there is to it. Horror follows these people and investigators need to be able to recognize the signs of their unraveling. While you’ll want to strike preemptively its not always possible. When you find one of these people, you’ll want to get close to them and find out if they are dangerous. A hundred years ago the practice of cannibalism was sensationalized by journalists who wrote about a few primitive tribes in the South Pacific who shrunk the heads of their enemies and feasted on their flesh. In later years rumors of cannibalism has been downplayed in the media, but continues to be a very common practice. Police rarely release the grisly details to the public, but there are cannibalistic cult killings that take place every year. Some people eat human flesh because the believe it tastes good and has a nutritional value. They don’t realize that eating human flesh has addictive qualities and that once you start, the desire for human flesh increases. For some people cannibalism has evolved into magical rite that allows them to steal another’s life essence or to gain their victim’s skills or knowledge. These ancient practices are alive and practiced in the modern world. Corporate officers, religious leaders and other powerful people often practice cannabilism to gain an edge over the competition. In rural America, cannibalism has become a secret roadside delicacy. As beef prices soar, many deranged, backwoods chefs have resorted to kidnaping, killing and then carving-up lone travelers. Stopping late at night to eat in a run down diner is not advised; you may end up as the next meal. Cult worship goes hand in hand with demon and devil worship. Everyone needs something to believe in and down through the ages charismatic madmen have been able to convince groups of people that summoning unpredictable, human-hating, soul-stealing demons as gods could somehow benefit them. There is a fine line between legitimate religion and a cult. Generally, the religious leaders of a legitimate faith empower their followers to better themselves, while cults tend to empower only the religious leaders and often at the expense of the cult followers. Legitimate religions support the moral underpinnings of their society, while cults encourage immoral or anti-social activity. Investigators of the paranormal know that cult members practice heinous immoral rites to gain themselves certain abilities. Cult members can gain invulnerability to harm caused by normal weapons, they can breathe water, cause unholy wounds and increase their physical prowess. Human sacrifice, especially the sacrifice of innocent infants, children and virgins, is prevalent in many cults. Mass suicides are common ways to turn cult leaders into Avatars. The cult leaders convince their followers of some impending doom and use their belief to become immortal deities while their congregations go into the Void. The United States Constitution guarantees freedom of religion so the worship of cults is legal and flourishes everywhere. Small groups of insane deviants only come to the attention of the authority when they go too far. This may take years; hundreds of people could die in that time. Our job as investigators of the supernatural is to discover these cults and eradicate them before they harm too many innocents. The cults that flourish in rural America often focus on the natural condition of the land; blighted crops, deep wooded areas, isolated groves and weather events can form the basis for demon worship. Cults in the city are more focused on the human condition. Demons often represent greed, avarice, hate and prejudice. The line between brilliance and insanity is often blurred, but if you discover a secret laboratory in your hosts basement I’d encourage investigation. If you should find human body parts floating in glass jars, irradiated man-eating plants, mutated animals or similar suspicious activity, blow the laboratory and get the hell out of there before he summons Frankenstein-like monsters to his defense! The scientists of Adolf Hitlers’ Third Reich are prime examples of when science goes mad. Paranormal experts were used to hunt down and destroy German supersoldiers and undead creatures created during the last years of World War II. Even today in remote areas, most often in South America, but more recently in the United States, members of the NAZI party are still trying to explore scientific ways to bring back the Third Reich. There are even those who believe that Hitler, the greatest human horror of modern times, still exists as an undead or other malevolent entity. A seance (from the french word meaning “sitting”) is a ceremony used to summon a spirit from the void. The seance must be performed by a group of people and at least one of these people must personally have known the spirit being contacted. The participants generally sit in a circle and one of their number leads the group in calling the spirit. The spirit is not obligated to come, but any spirit hearing the call can use the seance to enter our world. Most spirits can only stay for the duration of the seance, but every once in a while a spirit has been able to remain behind in the form of a ghost, poltergiest or other haunting. When multiple murders appear to be forming a pattern they are said to be serial killings. The backgrounds of these killings very often have some supernatural motivation. Bodies found with missing organs or murder in a particular fashion are often indicated occult pursuits. Many demons require sacrifices by their minions. When Jack the Ripper first made his appearance on the fog shrouded streets of Victorian London no one realized the influence he would have over later generations. Now-a-days copy cat killers abound and the psycho-slasher has evolved his craft into an art form. The media and Hollywood have made the most famous of these madmen into legends. I always advise people against sending their children to summer camp or stopping at lonely out-of-the-way motels. I’ve never been in a war, but my grandfather fought in World War II. From what he has told me the horrors of war can rival anything we face. Wars represent the darkest hour of humanity. They provide all the negative emotion necessary to turn even the holiest of hallows into black blights. Wars attract all forms of evil malevolence. The battlefield has spawned more demons than all the lovers quarrels put together. Oftentimes wars can quickly create undead or other hauntings. I’m not talking about the New Age mystics who like to burn incense and warn that bad spells come back three-fold. I am referring to the broom riding, demon-worshiping women who want to use your body and steal your soul. Don’t be misled, not all witches are ugly with warts, there are some witches who are very beautiful on the outside, but they’re just as ugly on the inside. Also, watch out for their familiars; those black cats and ravens can rip your face off! Be careful when you tangle with a witch, because they revel in casting harmful hexes and are not above using their sexuality to their advantage. There are dark places in this world of blighted mana that spawn all sorts of evil. The black mana flows carry evil throughout the world, flowing like poison through the bloodstream the taint brings death to all it touches. You’ll know a blight when you enter it, dark gnarled trees, brown grass or dead plant matter, the smell of stagnation and a feeling of dread. Blights are obvious places to find paranormal activity, but others may surprise you. The truth of the matter is any place can become haunted under the right circumstances. All it takes is a jealous lover, angry parent or sibling, a betrayal of trust, a desperate crime or sometimes even a tragic accident to subject a place to paranormal activity. I’ve traveled the world encountering all sorts of hauntings. It’s easy to find horrors, haunts and havocs during wars and in places of poverty, but do not forget the less obvious locations. Here, under the guise of peace and prosperity can exist terrible terrors that exact a toll on humanity in the most benign of times and places. Whenever investigating gets slow I will visit one of my local cemeteries. Often I do a public service by chasing off teenagers out tipping over tombstones, but every once in a while I find a recently risen undead roaming amid the stones. I like to play it safe and destroy undead when they first awaken and their muscles are still stiff from the grave. You may be surprised to learn how many horrific demons have inhabited cultivated fields. When the world had an agricultural base and people depended on their crops for life there was a lot of emotion pent up in the fields. The mass of growing plant life gathered mana energy that combined with the farmer’s fear of drought, early frosts, vermin, insects, flood and so forth caused the crops to become lightening rods to the paranormal. Farmers generally hang charms and hexes over their barns to protect their families. Their belief in their simple charms were often enough to stop demons and other entities from forming. If a haunting is particularly bad the farmer (or others in the community) may be forced to cut protective symbols into his fields. Many people call these geometric patterns crop circles and investigators should learn how to make them if they are planning to work in rural areas. Each pattern is specific to a particular type of entity or haunting. Oceans and lakes have always been a place of mystery and long have people wondered at the denizens of the deep. There are countless stories of sea monsters. Giant squids and flesh eating fish abound in the ocean and remote lakes of the world. Some lie dormant in the mud for centuries before rising up to hunt again. A strange race of underwater beings dwell in the blackest deeps and come to the surface to hunt. These underwater humaniods will sometimes trade with people living close to where they live. Sometimes this relationship deepens and the humans practice the strange magical rites of the underwater dwellers. Cultists serving underwater deities will sometime have webbed fingers or toes. They may even develop gills on their necks to breath water. When one thinks of ruins they often picture the European landscape dotted by the old castle walls, but magnificent ruins do not own the market on hauntings. Every community in America has an abandoned house the town council has condemned. In urban America is not uncommon to find abandoned factories or warehouses in the business district or along the waterfront. In rural America the landscape is filled with old wooden structures or stone foundations. In the western states there are many ghost towns weathering in the desert and after the sun goes down these places give rise to spectacular sights. Deserted ruins often become home to paranormal manifestations. There is something about an uninhabited structure that draws malevolence. Some people attribute the tendency to obvious causes such as squatting vagrants who bring thoughts of madness and loss, the drug deals consummated within the walls or the bodies dumped in the basement. I tend to think that the property became empty and stayed that way because of an underlying cause. When I investigate haunted ruins I deal with the active manifestations, but then I search for the underlying causes of the original abandonment. Everyone has a stand of trees close to their home that is a little darker than normal woods should be. The trees may be part of a park or on an undeveloped lot. Often these woods have spooky stories surrounding them that kids tell in a half-joking manner, but there is often more truth than fiction to these tales. I had the Deadman’s Drop in the neighborhood where I grew up. The Drop was located in a grove of dark intertwining trees on a wooded hill. A stream had undercut some of the grove leaving a fifteen foot drop into the rocky water below. As a child my friends told tales of people falling from the embankment and breaking their necks. Years later I went back and found a minor paranormal manifestation causing havoc by pushing people over the precipice. Any house can become haunted. Houses don’t have to be old to attract spirits or demons. I have been to many homes, built as part of residential developments that became home to supernatural denizens. Often these houses are built overtop Indian graveyards, lew lines, underground streams, battle sites or similar poor locations. Sometimes, accidents happen on the construction site or vagrants visiting overdose on drugs while seeking shelter in the half-finished homes. House hauntings can arise from sources to numerous to list. Phantom cars, ships, trains and planes are a common occurrence. They are almost always accompanied by a shadowy white ectoplasmic mist. The mists represent a blending of time and space that allows the phantom vehicle to exist. It is a common enough occurrence to see old schooners or pleasure boats on the oceans and along the sea shores, but one should not forget that large rivers especially the Missouri and Mississippi rivers have had their share of ghostly sightings. Phantom ships often take on sufficient form to allow people to walk on their decks and interact with their ghostly crews. Trains are less common, but many times they’ve pulled into stations and doomed passengers have gotten onto their cars. The haunted trains often end in a fiery crash and the burned bodies of the passengers are found alongside the tracks with no wreckage or explanation. Sometimes these trains go straight to Hell or some other dimension and the passengers are never seen again. There are many kinds of phantom automobiles, ranging from old cars to Mac trucks pulling trailers. Some appear on highways to run persons down, while others take their passengers on wild adventures through the ectoplasm. Stone circles were once used by the primitive magic-imbued people of the past to contact spirits and demons. Many are constructed over powerful nodes whose power, protected by the ring of stones, has not diminished over time. Many of the stone circles are still active and sometimes allow things to gate into this world. There have been many so called Secret Societies in the history of the world. Some are little more than fraudulent enterprises created to dupe marks out of money by promising to disclose magical powers to their members, but others represent true arcane organizations that can and do impart special knowledge onto worthy members. I’ll not take the time here to discuss the many “not-so-secret” secret societies. Many books have been written about the Knightly Order of the Templars, Society of Freemasons, Rosicruscians, Charcoal-Burners, Gnostics, Roshaniya and so forth. Some of these did (and may still) have arcane components, but many have been watered down and sacrificed so the true “secret” societies could remain hidden. I’ll urge my reader to examine other sources of information about the common secret societies known to the world and I’ll spend this section detailing secret societies that have remained relatively unknown to the population at large, but have had a profound impact on our world. Each of these arcane secret societies have manipulated the course of world events. All of these societies contain members who are capable of manipulating mana and will not heistate to kill or do worse in the course of their missions. When confronting secret societies the investigator must take great care. These societies have existed for many centuries and have vast resources. They almost always have connections in government and criminal enterprises. They may even control police forces and judges in the areas where they operate. It is the task of the specially trained paranormal expert to investigate and if necessary destroy members of these secret societies who create a danger to society. Many members of societies are content with furthering economic goals, but too often they begin seeking more direct power through paranormal means and this draws our attention. The average team of investigators should start with simple hauntings and build up their skills before taking on a multi-national arcane organization. These societies are very dangerous adversaries and be warned because defeating one cell of the group will have little effect on the overall global organization and reprisals may be made. This divine necromantic order is devoted to preserving and using the power of necromantic magic. Its members are twisted purveyors of corpses and connoisseurs of fine bone structure. They are often doctors or other professionals. Their powers include the creation of undead and the use of enervation magic. During the Middle Ages they attempted to conquer Europe using a vast army of undead that marched under their black skull banner. They were defeated by the Church and the Knights templar. The Society of the Blackened Skull fell back into obscurity. Members of the Blackened Skull are currently operating in their world countries. They often cloak their activities in organizations that offer humanitarian aid. They secretly build their undead armies and await for an opportunity to strike. Members of the Blackened Skull are often decentralized and rarely come together, but a movement within the organization seems to be encouraging greater cooperation perhaps to make another attempt at world domination using undead. The naturalists are a group who disdain the technological trappings of modern society. They would like to reduce society down to an agricultural or hunter-gatherer society. Many people stressed out by the fast pace of modern life are duped into serving this society. Its tenets have a certain benign appearance, but investigators know that leadership in the society seeks to reduce the world to a time when those with mana would hold great power. The less violent members of this secret society encourage protection of natural areas. They are active in governmental legislation protecting wildlife and open spaces. They are not generally dangerous. The more violent Naturalists of Gaia promote the reclamation of settled areas through natural disasters. They are rumored to practice a ceremonial magic that can actually cause natural catastrophes. Recently they have been very active and claim responsibility for causing the various floods, tsunamis, tornados and hurricanes that have plagued the world. Individual members have great control over beasts and weather phenomena. They can throw lightening and command the earth. The Naturalists are a close knit society and members are in constant contact. There is some disagreement between members over the loss of life caused by the natural catastrophes and the fact that the violence did not achieve their ends. In every case the destroyed towns were rebuilt and more people moved into the area. The radicals demand more destruction, while their comrades call for less drastic measures. If the radicals continue there will be a great need for paranormal investigators to specialize in combating these natural threats. The stated purpose of the Divine Preservers is to ensure that magical knowledge is not lost to the world. They were founded in Europe during the Dark Ages when the Church began persecuting those who were able to use magic. They are collectors of arcane knowledge and have vast libraries of ancient grimores and other works. Their libraries are spread around the world in the basements of members. A master database exists, but has never been located. The Divine Preservers are not violent and have actually helped investigators destroy harmful entities by providing background information or other useful knowledge. However, the Divine Preservers do not discriminate when it come to the dispersion of knowledge. They will supply information to whoever asks in an effort to preserve it. They have unwittingly supplied arcane teachings to some of the most powerful villains in the past few centuries. Investigating the paranormal was not limited to just the modern age. Down through the ages people have hunted and been hunted by horrors, haunts and havocs. Ancient societies were in general much more magically inclined than our current world and as a result there were many more instances of paranormal activity. Horrors, haunts and havocs come and go, waxing and waning with the people and the times. When humanity is troubled, as in time of social unrest or political upheaval, supernatural activity increases. The reasons for this rise is best understood within the context of various social climates. In this next section I’m going to go through some segments of our world history outlining the kinds of haunts, horrors and havocs present in each. Many of you might think history is boring (I agree), but I learned the hard way that it’s important to recognize historical context. History repeats itself over and over, empires rise and fall to be replaced with another, but humanity remains the same and so do the horrors faced. Each age has its own particular terrors tied closely to people existing in that society What concerns me most is that unlike previous ages our contemporary world is so broad and fast paced that it has aspects of all the horrors, haunts and havocs from previous ages and more. I fear for the future of humanity. 14,000 BC to 500 BC The ancient world was ruled by a magic-using elite who controlled the population with superstition, religious beliefs, force of arms and magical power. During this time genealogy was carefully studied and marriages were planned to ensure those capable of using magic passed down the traits through family lines. There was much in-breeding to ensure that all siblings were able to use mana. People feared their leaders and the world around them. It was a time of magical beasts, where dragons owned the sky and wolf packs roamed the woods. It was also a time of cults, demon worship and supernatural beasts. The kings were petty and often insane or sickly from generations of inbreeding. The average person was prayed on by all kinds of monsters, human and otherwise. The world was full of blights and black mana flowed everywhere. We don’t really know what kind of paranormal investigations went on during this period, but one could only imagine the extent of their workload. 470 BC - 476 AD The Classical Era is a time when magic and science existed harmoniously. Democracy took root in ancient Greece and by the time of Rome the petty magic-using tyrants of the Ancient World were mostly deposed to be replaced by the stabilizing power of the Roman Empire. In Rome, the rise of science and rational thinking blended with the use of magic to create a highly developed culture that lasted for nearly 500 years. Many volumes have been written about the fall of Rome, but I’ll tell you what caused the end of Rome in one paragraph. A decline of morality and increased poverty formed social stratification that led to the creation of blighted areas within Roman cities. These blighted areas spawned demons and other entities that exacerbated the conflicts between various factions within Rome. Rome rotted from within, putrefied by blights leaking hate into the population. The barbarian hordes that swept across the Empire were just the nails in the coffin of Rome. Records indicate that Roman society had no place for the paranormal investigator. They had plenty of soldiers and too many priests, but no one to combat the impact of blights on their civilization. Perhaps if Roman society had their version of the paranormal investigator, their society would not have been destroyed. It is ironic that much of the modern paranormal investigator’s effort is directed to destroying these blighted areas before they can taint the population around them. The United States could end up just like Rome if social stratification continues and there is insufficient activity to counterbalance the negative emotions created by an angry, stratified population. 477 AD - 1453 AD The removal of the strong, centralized government of Rome caused Europe to fragmented into small individual kingdoms, where local lords exercised power in their immediate vicinity. Vampyres and Lycanthropes enjoyed a resurgence in Europe as did magic using beasts. The landscape was a blighted mess and people needed a unifying force to swing the world back into a state of balance. The people of Europe turned to the church, whose leaders actively campaigned to destroy the blights and black mana flows. The church began hunting magic-users and non-humans of all types and persecuting them as servants of the devil. Thus, was born the precursor to the modern paranormal investigator. The witch hunter was the salvation of Europe and the fulcrum on which the world was levered from the Dark Ages. Mana flows were purposely disrupted and the dark energies were directed into cleansing churches where congregations of pious people prayed to redeem their society. The Dark Ages was a time of superstition and fear. Anyone who manipulated mana was seen as an enemy of the church and many good people died. The church practiced genocide on a immense scale and it was during this time that most people capable of using mana were killed. Since mana-use is hereditary, the numbers of people able to use magic dropped drastically during the Dark Ages. This decline in the use of magic allowed people to explore science and technology which eventually gave us the industrial revolution and the modern world. Today most paranormal investigators no longer believe any person using magic is “evil” or has connection to the Devil. As an investigator you will encounter people who use magic in many forms. There are many pagan worshipers, herbal healers, acupuncturists, faith healers and diviners who benefit society. In the modern world people using mana cannot be killed merely because they have an arcane or extraordinary skill. We understand magic as the manipulation of a force called mana and believe this manipulation can be used for either good or ill. Not all of these people are evil and some may become your allies, but you must remember that these people have their own agenda and may be members of secret societies. 1650-1790 Those settlers coming from Europe to the New World found a forest filled with supernatural beasts and faced a people who practiced shamanistic magic and communed with nature spirits. First hand accounts recorded in journals tell how the settlers built their small villages along the coast and clung to each other in the darkness after sunset. Beyond the log walls of their rough hewn cabins and palisades was a vast land very different from their own. Magic had fled the Old World during the Dark Ages and most settlers believed magic to be superstitions of their grandparents’ times. But in the New World magic was still used and the force of mana permeated all things. The American Indians had a rich magical heritage involving complicated rituals and prayers in every aspect of life. The Indians could use magic to cure the sick, aid the wounded, enchant items, speak with spirits and even call forth the elements. There were even groups of skin walkers who could assume animal form. When war between the settlers and Indians occurred the Indians used their magic to summon elementals and create undead things to attack the settlers. The forests were filled with giant trees and wild beasts raged through the underbrush with no fear of man. Journals of the time describe crows that called lightening from the sky and wolves that slid through the shadows. During the day the settlers hunted and trapped along the edges of these great arboreal expanses, but they dared not go into the heart of these primordial woods even under the light of the sun. The story of Early America was the struggle of the colonists to hunt down the monstrous beasts that roamed the wilderness and understand the pagan powers sent against them by the Indians. The settlers relied on their faith in god and their simple weapons. The few witch hunters who came to early America had their hands full and sometimes their efforts were not enough. The disappearance of the colony at Roanoke is an example of their early failures, but in time more witch hunters were trained and the power of magic was lessened by reason, wit and science. As western civilization spread westward, the lands to the east of the Appalachian Mountain Range became less dangerous and the people prospered. The monsters who remained were forced to live in the shadows and their number diminished greatly. Settlements grew to towns and then to cities. The time of terror was over, but people did not forget the roaming packs of winter wolves dragging children away from their homes, vengeful Indians spirits still on the warpath long after death, vicious cave bears that feasted on flesh and a thousand other horrors. These truths are still imprinted in our culture as folk tales. The encounters with magic in the New World had an interesting effect in Europe during the 17th and 18th centuries. Western civilization had a great fear of magic and witchcraft and the powers of the Indians filled most with dread. The stories carried back to the Old World created a hysteria. The church responded to the panic by leading a campaign throughout Europe against all heretics; witches, warlocks, alchemists and all sorts of mages were hunted down and put to death. The witch hunts were not limited to Europe. As the New World became more civilized the colonists moved to ensure mysticism did not threaten their society. The most famous witch hunt in Colonial America took place in Salem Massachusetts in1692 where 19 convicted witches were killed. There were hundreds of reported witch trails throughout the colonies and many hundreds more that went unreported because no community wanted to be labeled as one who harbored such criminals. I included Colonial America in my time line, but because it shows how societal opinions can impact on Investigators (then known as witch hunters) and shows a time when Investigators were known to the world and worked with law enforcement. In the modern world, hunters of the supernatural are more likely to be arrested by the law. In Colonial America many of the investigators of that time worked with people of authority to discover and destroy anyone capable of using magic. Hunting witches was a full time occupation. Investigators were respected and often empowered by writs issued by the governing authorities and many investigators had strong ties to the Church. As the colonial period drew to a close, the world became more civilized and people stopped believing in magic and spirits. Expectantly, the investigators of later periods chose to operate in secret, avoiding all interactions with general society and law enforcement who did not understand or appreciate their contributions to the world. 1810-1850 In 1803 the United States purchased Louisiana and the City of New Orleans. It was a land of fog shrouded swamps and river deltas. It was a dark place, full of blights and necromantic magical flows capable of raising the dead. This phenomena has yet to be explained. Some believe that eons ago a terrible prehistoric event took place in the delta and its effects are still being felt millennia later. New Orleans was settled by the French more than one hundred years before the American purchase. The city was a stopping place for pirates and a haven for practitioners of voodoo who used the necromantic magic of the land. New Orleans was a dark, mist shrouded swamp city, full of twisting, muddy alleys and ramshackle buildings. Crime was rampant and dangerous hauntings were commonplace. By the 1830's thanks to cotton and sugar, New Orleans became one of the richest, fastest-growing cities in the U.S. Sprawling mansions rose through the Delta as great plantations spread across Cajun America. But no matter how much wealth, prosperity and success developed in New Orleans, it could not erase the necromantic undercurrents of the land itself. The Delta has always been a land of the dead. Zombies wander the swamps, ghouls prow the city streets and vampyres are commonplace in the dance halls and bars that dot Bourbon and Canal Streets. Vast above-ground tombs in the cemeteries of New Orleans were called "cities of the dead" because of the prevalence of walking corpses. The religious icons and occult symbols that adorned the rusty ironwork, weathered stones and crumbling mausoleums did little to stem the tide of death rising from these blighted places. In the 1850's, the spontaneous rising of the dead came to a climax during the yellow fever epidemics that killed thousands. Almost every investigator in America had to go to the city and surrounding areas to lay the dead back to rest. Their cleansing activities had a positive effect on the blights, but every few decades there is an uprising of death again that needs to be addressed. The City of New Orleans needed to be cleansed again in the early twentieth century and now one hundred years later a terrible flood has initiated a new round of paranormal activity that needs to be addressed, but there are not enough investigators to do the job. 1880-1900 This era of English history borrows its name from Queen Victoria who ruled from 1847 to 1901. During this time the English Empire had spread across the globe to exotic places like Egypt and India and technological marvels were being discovered every day. Medical and scientific advancements gave hope for all that a better life was dawning- vaccines, antiseptics, anesthesia, electricity, dirigibles and subways. I am sure that my reader will find it hard to believe that horrors, haunts and havocs could gain a foothold in this time of scientific achievement, but I will direct your attention to history for in a short time the glory of the British Empire would fall to nothing and England would be a lonely island without colonies. Many people have their theories on what made the British Empire crumble, but as an investigator I will share mine so you can see trends in future societies and act to avert catastrophe. High Victorian society was governed by specific social costumes, called Etiquette, that governed almost every area of daily life. These codes regulated the behavior of men and women in all social circumstances. These seemingly innocent social rules created a stratification between the rich and the poor. We’ve seen the effects of social stratification before in Rome and we see it developing in the United States. Social stratification of Victorian England and the accompanying poverty and desperation blighted the landscape and caused an increase in paranormal activity that tainted the population. When one thinks of Victorian England, one often pictures men dressed in long over-coats with top hats and women wearing lovely gowns. They ride through gas lit streets in handsome cabs that clack along the cobblestones on their way to lavish social occasions. The rich enjoyed formal dinners with carefully panned courses, vast galas with music and dancing and invitations to displays of exotic artifacts recovered from the faraway lands conquered by the British Army. But beneath this glitter was a dark landscape of poverty, inequality and injustices. Along the same streets where the wealthy road in opulence, the poor struggled to survive. Here, there were workhouses, overflowing jails and crumbling row homes filled with desperate people. There was nowhere for these people to go and they could never hope to rise above their station as society conventions such as etiquette set them apart from the wealthy. This social stratification created the squalled conditions that encouraged the rise of horrors, haunts and havocs. Inspired by the blights, mad scientists concocted and built crazy machines that wrecked havoc and mayhem; cult members turned to evil gods brought from Indian, China and other foreign places; madmen like Jack the Ripper stalked the streets with supernatural powers of avoidance; and legends of the old Europe returned as werewolves stalked the fog shrouded moors and vampyres came to feast upon the poverty stricken people of the city. 1920-1933 The “roaring twenties” as the time would later be called was a wild era of speakeasies, flappers and gangland violence. Lobbying by the Anti-Saloon League and the Women’s Christian Temperance Union led to the passage of the 18th Amendment and the Volstead Act in 1919 which made it illegal to transport or sell any alcoholic beverages. Millions of American scoffed at Prohibition and liquor in the form of “bathtub gin” and “moonshine” was made in homemade stills across America, but this was not enough to supply thirsty Americans. The demand for liquor was great and prohibition spurred the growth of organized crime. Criminals supplied alcoholic beverages to the thirsty population racking in millions of dollars in profits. The cities were plagued with gun battles, drive by shootings and execution style murders. Notorious criminals such as Al Capone, George “Bugsy” Moran and Dion O’Bannion became famous for their exploits. In this time of criminal activity, government corruption and moral ambiguity blights could have formed wholesale across the country leading the United States to ruin, but the formation of blights and the accompanying spread of taint was impeded by strong countervailing social pressures. The 1920's was a time of world exploration and scientific advance that captured the imagination of the average person. While times were hard discoveries were still being made by the average person exploring his backyard or working in basement laboratories. The American Dream was alive and livable by the average American. In this optimism blights could not fully form. The 1920s was also the meeting time of old fashioned ideas and the dawn of technological sophistication and there was much work to be done by investigators. The American people were confident in their developing scientific sophistication and they acted without regard for old superstitions. Because of their curiosity, avarice or just plain foolishness they would undertake activities that often lead to their ruin. I remember a wealthy gentlemen who made a fortune in business, but he was a fool when it came to the paranormal. He purchased an old Indian burial ground because it was an undeveloped tract of land close to the city. Despite warnings by old timers, he built his mansion on the hallowed earth. The fate of his family was terrible and after being accused of their murder he took his own life. Three teams of Investigators worked to cleanse the home of vengeful Indian spirits. Scientists of the time caused much havoc with their intrusions into things both old and knew. Inventors with basement laboratories hatched all kinds of horrors in their pursuit of scientific advancement; Archeologists unearthed mummies and brought them from their tomes in Egypt to display in museums or private showings where they awoke to enact their curse; American naturalists exploring the Amazon brought back plants that fed on the blood of those who viewed them; Explorers of the Antarctic discovered strange remains and brought them back at great peril to their city and scientists exploring the limits of our three dimensions opened doors to other dimensions admitting terrible things into our world. A craze of Spiritualism swept America in the 1920's. While many were simply fraudulent performances using speaking trumpets, moving tables, floating sheets and other props, some mediums were capable of contacting the Beyond. On October 24, 1929 the stock market collapsed and the bubble that had been the roaring twenties burst. The nation fell into despair and blights increased exponentially. As we have seen before the fall of society gives power to the malignant forces of the world. During the years after Black Tuesday proponents of the paranormal acted brazenly, but there were a large number of paranormal investigators who could destroy or debunk the blights before they could trigger total societal collapse. Haunted carnivals traveled the dusty roads and highways causing mayhem as they moved from town to town. While the midway rang with laughter and sparkling lights captivated children and parent alike, innocents died horrific deaths in the shadows beyond the midway. These traveling cesspools of evil concealed cultists, killers, werewolves, vampyres or worse. The dark carnivals with their capering clowns, deep voiced ring masters and grotesqueries were some of the most horrific hauntings of the age. In the mid-west the farmers fought nature demons that brought massive insect swarms that stripped crops from the field and flesh from the bones. Science blamed the dust-bowl on a drought, but science could not battle the vengeful spirits called by the shamans to suck the water from the land and drive the civilization back to the coasts. Investigators were needed to hunt down these nature spirits running amok. Prohibition was repealed in 1933 and the era came to a close. 1920-1945 Following the Great War the people of Germany suffered under a treaty that left them a bankrupt nation governed by a corrupt democratic body known as the Weimar Republic. Inflation plagued the economy and money became worthless. The grand city of Berlin- filled with opulent hotels, theaters and nightclubs- shuddered to a halt. People sold their family heirlooms for loaves of bread. Paintings were pulled from walls and gold gilding was stripped off the furniture; when all this was gone the people still faced starvation. These desperate people of Germany would do anything to survive and they began to turn on their leaders who they blamed for their condition. Spies, political intrigue and rebellion were the hallmark of Weimar Germany. In raucous beer halls artists, writers, theater performers and the decadent youth of Germany met with disgruntled old soldiers to plan the overthrow of the Weimar Republic. Amid this conspiratorial environment stalked an insidious evil that gave rise to the greatest horror of the Twentieth Century. The NAZI party competed for control of Germany with many other political parties and institutions. The only difference setting the NAZIs apart from the other fascists in those early days was the NAZI’s reliance on occult practices and their willingness to enlist demons and other paranormal creatures into their service. They used the blighted landscape of Germany to their advantage. Many paranormal investigators went to Germany in an attempt to stem the rising tide of terror. They met harsh resistance when they encountered members of the NAZI party. In later years, NAZI storm troopers and elite forces hunted down all the paranormal investigators in the area and placed them in concentration camps with others he saw as a threat. Hitler wanted the blights to develop, he was nurturing their necromantic essence. His plan was to harness their energies and spawn supernatural soldiers to conquer the world. Berlin was awash with desperation and vice. It was a black parody of empty hope where a desperate people shed all morality to survive. The rise of Hitler ended the Weimar Republic and swallowed the German people into the belly of his madness. World War II covered the European landscape in bloodshed and death and brought the entire world to the brink of madness. War creates the worst kinds of horrors, haunts and havocs and the United States Government was forced to form paranormal investigation teams. This super-secret agency sent teams behind enemy lines to disrupt or destroy Hitler’s paranormal research facilities. Their heroics allowed our soldiers to win the war, because if Hitler had been able to unleash the things he was fostering on a large scale the world could have been destroyed. 1950-1965 By the end of World War II thousands of young servicemen came back to America and in less than a decade rock and roll was born. An exciting new music for exciting new times. The soldiers wanted to pick up their lives and start families in new homes with new jobs. American society leapt forward with an energy never before experienced. Technology improved, lifestyles changed and American industry expanded as never before. There was growth everywhere. The 1950s were a time of blue jeans, poodle skirts, slicked back hair, hula hoops, coon skin caps, silly putty, hot rods and teenage rebellion. It was a time of television and radio and the advent of mass media appeal. The success of the post war-era was marred by the cold war with Russia and the conflicts in Korea. The atomic age was on hand and mutual destruction by nuclear attack caused an undercurrent of fear that touch all levels of American society. The cold war was a time of spies, bomb shelters, air raid practices and anti-communism. This perfect environment for horrors, haunts and havocs was disrupted by countervailing social pressures. Rock and roll music swept the nation and no matter how bad things appeared there was unshakable hope in the rhythm and song. There are those who believe the development of rock and roll music was encouraged by the government to distract a population and to prevent the formation of blights. Despite the fear, blights could not form when the youth of America were busy doing the Twist. The people of the 1950s were the first society to commercialize the paranormal on a large scale. The drive-in movie theaters showed black and white movies depicting all sorts of horrors, haunts and havocs to a desensitized population. The great irony of the time is that the more movies Hollywood made, the less people believed. It always amazed me how close to the truth so many of those celluloid strips came to the truth. The Day of the Triffids was about plant monsters that tried to take over the world. A small town in North Dakota experienced a similar fate and if not for a troupe of intrepid investigators perhaps the world would have suffered a Day of the Triffids. The Creature from the Black Lagoon aptly described the fate of many who traveled the Amazon only a few decades before. Even the zombie film The Night of the Living Dead which showed corpses coming to life and rampaging across the countryside was eerily reminiscent of the zombie epidemics in New Orleans in the later half of the 19th century. This era demonstrates how a segment of society can prevent a general decline of the landscape. Rock and roll music and the commercialization of the paranormal helped prevent the formation of blights in a terrifying time of fear and suspicion that under any other circumstance could have potentially destroyed America and possibly the world in a nuclear holocaust. 1965-1975 The late 1960s and early 1970s were a time of great social change. The young people rebelled against the conservative 50's and rejected the war in Vietnam. Radical new ideas were developing on college campuses and in hippie communes all across America. Music motivated people and bands like Led Zeppelin and the Doors captured the hearts of the people. Psychedelic drugs were in common use and people experience a resurgence in shamanism and magic. Cults were on the rise as young people searched for something to believe in. The hippie movement came to represent an entire generation whose uninhabited sexuality and forays into the occult brought forth countless horrors to plague their society. The remoteness of Hippi communes made them the perfect target for demons and madmen. This was the era of the serial killer. Slashers abounded, people lived in fear of killers like the Son of Sam and others like him. Hollywood was quick to seize on the terror and produced a series of occult thrillers focusing on unstoppable demonic killers. 2000- Present You would think that by the twenty-first century horrors, haunts and havocs would be gone from the world, but you would be wrong. While its true there’s not as many as in past ages, those that remain are the strongest, smartest and by far the most deadly of all the horrors, haunts and havocs that have ever plagued this world. Many of those surviving have been alive for thousands of years and its going to take some hard work to bring them down. They are dangerous beyond your imagination. In our age of cell phones, computers and the Internet there are still monsters in the darkness and a need for investigators. The modern world has all of the excesses mentioned in the previous eras and its own particular nuances like the Internet where horrors stalk cyberspace waiting for their moment to escape. There are people whose New Age practices, include mass suicides, satanism, vampyrism, voodoo and demons summoning. Corporate, political and religious leaders are on the fast track to power, using dark magic to aid their meteoric rise. The stratifications of society are as deep in the modern world as in any previous era. The rich get richer and the poor fall deeper into debt. College doesn’t guarantee a job and too many people are stuck in service oriented jobs that they hate. The world seems to be on the brink of something dreadful. The balloon of society keeps rising higher and one wonders when it will burst. The commercialization of paranormal activity is greater today than in any previous generation. Never before have so many people discounted the existence of magic. Hollywood cranks out a new horror film every week and the eager population treats them all as fiction. The modern world is moving to an apocalypse and we desperately need teams of trained investigators. Social stratification, immorality, and the rise of secret societies and cults are signs we have seen before throughout our history. Add to that a reliance on technologies susceptible to paranormal manipulation and a general ignorance of the paranormal and you have a recipe for disaster. We need more professional teams of investigators. Recent studies have shown that in the past five years the number of blights in the world has more than doubled. At this rate every major town will have a blight in less than a decade! We’ll need a team in every town if we want to avoid being overrun. While there are lots of amateur groups ghost hunting, there are only a few professional organizations in the world devoted to hunting horrors, haunts and havocs. Some are small grass roots groups, while others are large corporate endeavors. A few have government funding, but most exist as private entities. All secretive and hard to break into and many have isolated themselves from each other. It’s ironic that we are experiencing a resurgence in recreational ghost hunting. Many books are being published on the topic and the Internet is filled with fan sites, but people do not understand what they are looking for. There are even a number of television shows depicting amateurish buffoons bumbling around in the dark with ghost hunting gear. Their prefatory research is minimal, they carry no weapons and have absolutely no self-defense training. This kind of publicity encourages foolhardy investigation. Many lives have been lost as amateurs explore areas of paranormal activity without understanding the context of what they face. While looking for “orbs”, they find a monster that rips off their face. Whose fault is this? I blame the media. I blame the buffoons demonstrating a disrespect for the power of the paranormal.
It is my hope this document will save lives by providing honest answers and encouraging solid investigatory skills. We live in a dangerous time, the mana flows are darkening and blighted nodes are becoming more common. I believe that paranormal activity will increase and we will need more investigators to combat these threats. If you are interested in becoming an investigator please contact me. Robert Folsom 2005 |
