Samhain Publishing Ltd Weblog

Paranormal Pot Luck: Mine, Yours, Theirs, Ours

My 106 year old house is haunted. There’s a guy in denim work clothes who stays mostly in the basement, where I don’t go. I caught a glimpse of him the first fall we lived here. We also hear him or deal with his antics when too much work goes on in the basement. Doors open that should stay closed, for instance. Which explains why, when we moved into the house, the door to the basement, and the upstairs level and living room all had chain locks. The regular ones don’t work when the basement guy is pissed. And there’s Ghost Kitty. She’s grey and playful and has showed herself to many of our surprised visitors who mistake her for our cat. Our corporeal cat is far larger, more sedentary, and haunts the vicinity directly in front of the upstairs radiator. She never comes out to see visitors, unless it’s to hiss at them and shoo them away.

I also happen to use my kitchen table to do Tarot readings for friends and the few select clients I saved from a once bustling practice in psychic advising. I’ve used the three season porch and back room for them too, but the vibe is best in my kitchen. I think because the old hearth, though boarded up, opens into that space. Or maybe it’s all the orange tea pots on the wall paper. What ever generates the vibe in the house, or stirs up the spirits, it boils down to one thing: I’m no stranger to the paranormal. These and many other similar anecdotes may be the influences that drive me to write in the contemporary paranormal romance genre. And why I read heavily in it as well.

Used to be, paranormal fare was limited to a few books, and a TV show here or there. But lately, it’s everywhere I turn. In particular, Paranormal has turned the tube into this fantastic, great big paranormal pot luck. Spin the dial, chances are good it will stop on paranormal entertainment of some kind. From Psych, USA Network’s dark farce about a slacker with keen observation skills turned police psychic to Lifetime’s America’s Psychic Challenge, a reality based competition between selected psychics such as mediums, clairvoyants and clairaudients, all striving to be last psychic standing, there’s something for just about everyone. Even I’ve been impacted: or, my characters, by the psychic groove. My next book, Immortal Illusions, features a hero and heroine who use a form of psychometry and clairsentience to retrieve missing arcane artifacts while outwitting enemies bent on destroying the dimension. Sure they toss in a good does of magic, but primarily, they surf the psychic waves to find what they need and get the job done.

The bounty, however, doesn’t stop with the psychics. The boundaries have been pushed, perhaps even cut. Ghost Whisperer, a long time favorite, now has it’s reality version, a medium named Lisa Williams on (again) Lifetime, doing on-the-spot ghost contacts. Speaking of ghosts, there’s any number of ghost hunting teams scouring spooky sights. Court TV had Psychic Detective, and now does sporadic special crime / psychic matching shows. Last, but not least, we have the A Team of the modern age: hunters facing off against the things that go bump in the night, and basically, bumping them right back and off. Shows like Supernatural (WB), Bloodties (Lifetime), Moonlight (CBS), and Torchwood (BBC America) feature boogeyman squads out there fighting on the edge, keeping the real world safe for us unsuspecting mere mortals and earthlings. I for one couldn’t be happier.

Yet it leads me to wonder, what is really driving the sudden explosion of paranormal, beyond the books? TV tends to have high production costs, yet, the appetite of the public seems insatiable enough to support such diverse and sometimes, bizarre shows. It’s not just a handful of us anymore, ordering and grabbing up every book with a funky cover and promises of a walk on the wild, and wicked side.

I think there are two explanations. One, these stories have always been around, happening in our lives. Everyone has stories of times they knew something before it happened, of a favorite aunt who just happens to use the Ouija board with great success, of an old house where they lived where the dead might have lived side by side as well. There’s enough of us with these, and enough open consciousness in society, that these stories are now stepping up side by side with the regular fare, and taking in the lime light at last. I also think it represents a societal meta-theme: there is a whole bunch we know about our universe, but in reality, there’s way more we don’t know, don’t understand, or don’t want to even contemplate. And as much of that stuff we don’t know, there’s as much about ourselves that we don’t know, until we’re called to action.

We have these skills to whisper to ghosts, see signs and interpret portends, stand up for the muster and hold the shield wall against the things that lurk in the dark and shadows. We have the stuff of heroes inside, and all our anecdotes and family stories are the smoke hinting at that fire we all possess. Along with our hidden potential, we also have hope. Hope that no matter how far out, freaky or frightening, there will be someone among us who can and will cowboy up when the boogeyman decides to throw down.

As enjoyable as the TV fare has been lately, and the reading fare has always been, I have to admit, I’m more of a sucker for the good old fashioned first hand, second hand told round the fire or over jelly jar cocktails at a friend’s house kind of story. That ‘there I was, in the Congo, when the ghost kitty appeared to me and tried to trip me up’ stuff. So how about you guys? Any theories on why the genre has bust wide open? Any good ghost stories, or anecdotes of the odd and odder you’d like to share?