Notes From A Paranormal Expo


I drifted around like a ghost, staying in the background, jotting impressions down in my small notebook.

Saturday. 10/16/10. A year later; how time flies. Same location, the old gym on a former military base in Plattsburgh, NY. This second time for the paranormal expo had the same set up: vendors upstairs, lecturers downstairs.

Reviewing my notes:

-- The main area upstairs for vendor tables: a basketball court. Like a high school that has to use its gymnasium for both athletic and social events. Today a paranormal expo. Upcoming events: a sock hop, a bake sale, and then the big game.

-- Psychic sits at a folding table in the middle of a basketball court, giving a reading. The readee across from the psychic, intent on what the reader has to say. Me, I would want more privacy. The burning candle works in a small dimly lit room but not a brightly lit gym.

-- Missed the presentation on UFOs in Northern New York State, my neck of the woods. Other lectures focused on the supernatural.

-- Four people sit towards the back of the lecture room, two couples. Skeptics, making cynical comments to themselves. I'm halfway between them and the lecturer, just close enough to pick up their vibes. I don't buy everything the lecturer states but at least I'm mature enough to keep my negative thoughts to myself. A polite ghost. After a while the snide four leave. Hope a gang of poltergeists slaps them silly tonight.

-- A paranormal investigator states that most hauntings don't involved demonic spirits. But he doesn't discount such evil beings. A Roman Catholic, he conducted the rite of exorcism one time but as a lay person. He wasn't entitled like a priest to read two certain lines from the rite.

-- A healer shows the invisible. She invites people from the audience up front. The person stands there and the healer uses dowsing rods to show the size of that person's energy field. Large fields = personal imbalance, emotional distress.

-- Lecturers repeated common New Age/paranormal beliefs:

* A nasty person while living becomes nasty spirit after death.

* Weird things happen with quantum physics; that's why weird things happen with the paranormal.

* Chiropractors can cure many ills with spine alignment; even babies should visit one.

* Live in the now, not the past or the future.

* Everyone to varying degrees has psychic powers. Not everyone can be a psychic superstar (Uri Geller) but can develop potential powers.

* Children are open-minded, able to see more than adults. But are conditioned not to believe in spirits, UFOs, etc., lose ability to see more.

-- Paranormal investigators talked about devices they use. EMF - electro-magnetic field - detector: reveals ghostly activity or malfunctioning fluorescent light. Scalar microphone: detects multi-dimensional wave patterns; akin to sound waves through time; like dowsing rod, different results with different users.

This year's paranormal expo had the same attendance rate, around 900 people according to newspaper articles. But considering the state of the economy, that's good, it held its own. If there's a third one next year and I'm around, I'll try to attend -- either in my present physical form or whatever. (I always wanted to knock an EMF detector off the scale.)