"I'm
a con artist in that I'm an actor. I make people believe something is real when
they know perfectly well it isn't." John Lithgow
"The
greatest friend of con artists is lack of knowledge." Jane King
In the beginning there was a student at Penn State … his
name was Ryan Buell, a wide-eyed journalism major who had a lifelong interest
in all things paranormal due to having odd experiences as a child [which have never
been identified]. As a freshman, he founded Penn State Paranormal Research
Society [PSPRS]. It was a student organization that aimed to bring together
fellow students who shared the same interest in the paranormal field. They participated
in some investigations that garnered the team local and national news coverage.
Soon they began receiving interest from TV production companies in being
featured in a para-reality series. After several failed attempts, Ryan was
ready to walk away from the paranormal field until he and his team got an offer
for a show that eventually was called Paranormal
State. You can read Ryan's book, Paranormal State: My Journey into the
Unknown, where he goes into detail about his struggles to get a show. His
intense search for a TV outlet leads us to ask if this was the real reason behind
PSPRS? Later, the group's name was changed to PRS as Penn State broke ties with
the group due to lack of interest from the student body.
The show aired on A&E for 5 seasons from
2008-2011. The audience was told that due to such a heavy volume of cries for
help, PRS only responded to the worst of cases. According to former and current
PRS members, they never had loads of cases being sent to them. Yes, they
received many questions about ghosts and hauntings and such, but few asked for
the team to come to their home. In order to get cases for the show, they
depended on producers going out and finding them. The M. family in Quincy's now
infamous "I Am Six" case was a referral from Commonwealth Paranormal located
in Morehead, Kentucky.
Lara M is the oldest and only daughter of Bob [James]
and Barbara. She was in the final stage of her college education when she was
given a severe medical diagnosis, causing her move back home. There, she claims
that weird things were taking place within the home. To figure out what's going
on, she does an EVP session. For those of you not in the paranormal field, an
EVP is an Electrical Voice Pattern. These are picked up by any audio recording device.
You ask a question, hit RECORD, and wait a few minutes. Then you ask something
else … and wait. Usually you receive very short snippets of audio. The whole
concept is very controversial and many wonder if you're hearing what you want
to hear or are you just picking up an audio signal from someplace? Controversy
also revolves around noises being faked by the investigator. According to the Christian
view, the noises you get from any EVP are nothing more than a demon playing
tricks on the investigator.
Lara also played with an Ouija board [PRS calls them
spirit boards]. Even though Ouija boards have been around for more than a
century, there is a lot of controversy surrounding them. Those with proper
training will use them with caution, but those who think they're a game might
end up in severe spiritual trouble. Trying to contact the dead can result in getting
any wayward spirit or demon. If used by a single person, it's difficult to validate
what you can encounter. Some think that even using a Ouija board opens you up
to demonic activity.
People laugh at this sort of thinking and will brush
it off by saying that they've used the board many times and nothing bad ever happened
to them. That argument can be countered that there are those who drink and
drive countless times without any type of mishap, no wrecks, no arrests, everything
is cool … yet there are some who do it once and end up dead or in jail.
Playing with such a device is like taking a loaded gun
and playing Russian roulette. You might do it all your life and nothing happens
yet that one time you might get a demon, and, if you do and are ignorant or
careless enough to invite it in, you have given it a legal spiritual right to
be in your home. By doing this you have one lonely demon who wants the company
of his kind. So by opening the door, it gets pushed wider and wider until there
are many others that have occupied your home and, of course, your life. This
type of demonic entry point is very common and well known so if one wants to
plant the idea of demons in the house you bring up the subject of demons.
The M family doesn't having a background in demonology
and/or the paranormal. When we get into the break down of the episode, we'll
take a closer look at the M family and Lara's claims of demon activity.
Initially, they try to deal with it on their own but nothing works, so they
contact some paranormal groups who wish to remain nameless. They find nothing and
suggest that the family might look into to some help for Lara from a therapist.
[She was under the care of one.]
The family even turned to the church seeking help. The
church did an investigation into the matter and found no evidence to move forward
with the case.
There were no answers, until representatives from the
Kentucky-based group, Commonwealth Paranormal, drove up to the M house to look
into the matter.
Smashwords: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/250671
