Paranormal State - a review

The bad news is that the critics love this show. That's a shame - it means it will be around a while.

The first thing this show brings to mind is an old movie called "Children Shouldn't Play with Dead Things" in which a group of young actors thinks it's a good idea to say an incantation in a grave yard and they end up fighting off zombies. In the case of Paranormal State, they believe in demons, and that's exactly what they're finding.

The group's leader is a kid named Ryan, who apparently grew up psychic with no one to help him understand it. That's common in this country and it's both sad and dangerous. I think the intent of this show is to help people understand psychic phenomena, but this group is ill-equipped to help anyone. They are deeply entrenched in Catholicism and when it comes to dealing with spirits, that makes them superstitious and dangerous.

Catholicism views the world as a strictly divided dichotomy of good and evil. It sets up an extreme polarity that makes energy unnecessarily volatile. There is a tendency for Catholics, this group included, to be afraid of spirit activity. The group uses dramatic terms like "dead time" which sets up a negative expectation. Ryan flatters himself by believing he is at war with a demon.

Spirits can have an agenda just like people can, but like people, they are rarely all good or all bad. They do sometimes want to be noticed, though, and if they have something to say, they'll take any form they need to to get your attention. Being a combination of energy and consciousness, they can take varied forms. If you want a demon, you'll get a demon. If you think that demon's dangerous, it is. That's why people who believe in demons shouldn't do psychic work. If there's an underlying expectation of danger, or if anyone in the group has a pathological need for attention or punishment, there's going to be trouble. Ryan has apparently consulted with the Catholic church on a exorcism, and now thinks he's at war with the "demon" involved in that case. He thinks it is after him. I suppose that makes for good television, but it makes him a problem. He's the last person that should be around a kid who sees ghosts.

These are college students, so they're at the end of the psychic reawakening that happens naturally in adolescence. They add to the energy like batteries or conduits. They say that want to help people, but I've seen them do some real harm already. The first episode I watched involved a little boy who was seeing shadowy spirits and the spirit of a young man who lived in his house and was found dead in nearby woods 6 months after they moved in. They left the kid's parents with an expectation that his gifts are a burden and out of the ordinary. Ryan left the kid with a bottle of holy water, and told him that "things" used to come out of his closet and he was taught to throw holy water at them to make them go away. Lovely.

What he should have told the boy is that psychic phenomena is perfectly normal and natural. This particular boy has an extremely well-developed psychic sense, and that should be enjoyed, not feared. Instead, they taught him to be afraid of spirits. They set the kid up for future trauma, because spirits are everywhere and most appear as shadows, but they aren't harmful. Very few spirits are. Even if there was a problem, holy water is not a lasting remedy. They should have told the kids to keep a journal of whom he sees and when, but not to be afraid because nothing can hurt him unless he lets it. He was old enough to be given instructions to do a simple invocation of protection, though hopefully it would just involve white light and not the full-on patriarchal deity with a persecution complex.

The problem with all these TV ghost hunters is they want to confront and banish everything. That's only rarely needed, and setting up that expectation is silly - why pick a fight with a spirit that's minding it's own business? If they want your help, they aren't shy about asking.

The second episode I watched involved a poltergeist which they completely misinterpreted as a demonic presence. The home was the site of a brutal mass murder, so there's a ton of negativity that has never been cleared. That's not the source, though. When you have a poltergeist, you invariably have a young person in or near adolescence who is angry and repressed. In this case, the family involved is a mother and a teen-aged boy, about 14 I think, who has recently been abandoned by both his biological and adoptive fathers and is angry with his mom for driving them away. I'd be more surprised if they weren't having a problem in those circumstances. The group incorrectly identified the mother as the problem.

On the plus side, the group arranged counseling for them, albeit with a priest. On the negative side, they pulled in a psychic best known for her work at the infamous Amityville house, and she helped set them firmly on the track of a demon, as did another psychic who participated in their seance. They were insistent that what they were doing was not a seance, but when a group of people sits around a table, invokes divine protection and asks resident spirits to come out and chat, that's a seance even if there's no one acting as a medium.

This week's episode apparently involves the confrontation with the aforementioned "demon." An exorcism might help the problem temporarily, if the boy at the house believes it will. Exorcisms are most often performed for the psychological benefit of the target individual, rather than banishing an actual spirit. If nothing is done about his anger, the fix won't last long. If Ryan is getting off on the idea of doing battle with the forces or evil, this will happen again and again. I just hope he doesn't get anyone else hurt in the process.

Psychic phenomena is perfectly normal. The term "Paranormal" is a misnomer. Spirits are everywhere, and usually pose no threat to anyone. Can negative entities ham people? Yes, but I'm not aware of such a case that didn't involve irresponsible activity on the part of a living person. In those cases, ritual can be an effective remedy, but instead of calling out demons, burn some sage, sprinkle some salt water, and ask for the glorious white light of the Goddess (or of whomever you like to pray to) to surround you to surround you so that nothing but good can get to you. Smudge the house with your sage, making sure you get every window, door and mirror, and that's usually all you need. Close by inviting in only good energy and thank your higher power for Her/his/its love and protection and end it ("so mote it be" or "amen" or whatever) and that's all you usually need to do.

When you movie into a new place, you can prevent a lot of trouble by cleaning it first. Buy a brand new broom and get a bottle of Anisette. Invoke the white light, sprinkle a little bit the liquor on the broom and swing a clockwise circle in each room, then lightly beat the walls with the bristles. Do this in every room. (You can smudge the entrances with sage as described above if you want, but that's not usually necessary.) Invite only your greatest good to enter your home, thank your higher power, close it out, and enjoy the faint licorice scent and bright, light of your new home.