On his radio show a couple weeks ago, Father Mike asked me why I got into the paranormal. I gave the simple answer that I started because my wife was into it. This was because I thought my real answer would take too long.

For the sake of sanity, I’m going to organize this chronologically. 

When you farm, you are tied to the land, which meant my family didn’t move around. However, we were not the only ones in the house I grew up in. I was born late, my sisters were in high school by the time I came along, and even before I was born, they had experiences in our house.

I’ve heard stories about my sisters’ experiences. They would catch glimpses of people out of the corner of their eyes. Once they saw a full bodied apparition of a man in white wearing a helmet. On another occasion, my mother witnessed them both get repeatedly pinched by an unseen force. My dad didn’t believe anything was in the house, but my mother insisted they sleep in the small, downstairs bedroom.

When I was a child, I always felt unwelcome in the upstairs, where I was supposed to sleep. Every night, I would get up after about an hour, come downstairs and sleep on the sofa. I eventually took over a small side room in the upstairs, but whenever I needed to go into the other areas, to grab something out of the storage room  or a dark closet, I always felt nervous, like I was intruding on someone. I could feel people watching me. I used to bargain. “Okay, I’m just here to get a couple things, and I’ll be as quick as I can.”

When my wife and a close friend told me they were going to start a mediumship group, I was scared out of my mind.

I started with a mediumship group around 2 years ago. We intently tried to develop our ability to speak to spirits for over a year. Some of us were better at it than others. I have to admit, I was a slow learner. I was also afraid to get anything. It was also in this group that I met the members of Quantum Psi Paranormal.

One of the group members suggested we watch a program called Psychic Kids, a History Channel reality show where psychics would spend a week or two with children whose psychic gifts were troubling them. While my abilities were not as strong as many of these pre-teens, I was amazed at how much the stories of these children paralleled my own.

I’m going to preface this next segment by saying that I have never done much religiously or had more the a cursory interest in the bible. However, one day, a certain bible verse popped into my head so I looked it up. The verse explained that the dead had no power over the living. For some reason, this message changed my outlook entirely.

During the next few months, our mediumship group changed focus to any kind of psychic development. People drifted away and came back, like they do in any group, but things seemed to be going pretty well. Then one night, we suffered what some call a demonic attack, what some call trickster energy. No matter what you call it, one thing was clear, the group would never be the same again. We split down pretty even lines, those who did not want to deal with negative forces and those who wanted to fight them.

They say that trickster energy is transformative, making people question their base assumptions. Some people that night were scared. Some people were angry. I was overcome that night with the feeling that I wanted to fight dark forces. Where I once felt fear, I felt a bottomless well of calm.

At this point, I was in close contact with Darcie McGrath, leader of Quantum Psi. My wife had done some investigations with her, and I had already gone on an investigation with Johnson County Paranormal. Darcie had recently experienced some turnover, and because of my wife’s association, I was essentially drafted into the group.

So, I didn’t really go seeking contact with the paranormal, it’s just been with me my entire life. I’ve just decided I no longer need to be afraid of it.