Kia ora, hello everyone. Welcome to another episode, of our Walking the Shadowlands podcast. A special welcome to all new listeners and thank you for joining us. Also, welcome back to my regular listeners. In this episode our guest Tracey takes us on a thought-provoking journey through the realm of paranormal investigation, here in New Zealand. From childhood curiosity to academic exploration, Tracey shares her authentic experiences and deep insights into the unexplained and how she views investigations in general.

So, are you really to join us as we walk into this part of the shadowlands and delve into the fascinating world of the supernatural with Tracy as our guide? Let’s begin.

English-born but having grown up in New Zealand Tracey has had an interest in all things considered supernatural from age 10 and spent numerous hours of her childhood devouring every book she could lay her hands on regarding anything to do with these subjects.
In her teenage years, she began researching the occult and practising as a Hedge witch which resulted in her joining a few different magickal orders over the decades to further her knowledge in this area.
From 1980 to 1995 she studied Psi Phenomena and Folklore while conducting numerous solo vigils and explorations of alleged haunted or supernatural locations throughout the UK before becoming part of a paranormal investigative group in New Zealand for a short time.  2010 saw her co-found The Quantum Foundation where she felt she could assist in the exploration of the paranormal further whilst lending her 40 years of active experience and knowledge within the field.
She holds qualifications in Business Management, Conference and Event Planning, Tourism and Adult Education and has completed a course in Parapsychology with The University of Edinburgh in the UK.
Tracey likes to keep a healthy level of scepticism whilst investigating claims of the paranormal and her sole drive and focus as a researcher is to collect and collate data as opposed to producing evidential claims of the paranormal.

Exploring the Depths – From Childhood Curiosity to Paranormal Expertise

Marianne: Tracey, I’d like to welcome you to the Walking the Shadowlands podcast. Thank you so much for agreeing to talk with me and my audience and tell us about your work and your experiences having a paranormal investigation team. I know this is an area that my listeners find incredibly fascinating.

Tracey: Thanks for having me, Marianne. It’s actually quite boring to be honest.

Yeah, definitely. It can be.

Absolutely.

So, to begin with, how did you become interested in paranormal investigation and can you share any personal experiences that sparked your curiosity?

I don’t remember a time that I wasn’t interested in the supernatural at all, to be quite honest. This is a childhood thing. This stems right back to my childhood. I spent many hours when people used to go to the library. Do you remember those days, Marianne?

Yes, I do.

Well, when there was libraries open and people actually read books. So, I was one of those that spent hours and hours in libraries. Poring through the reference sections and finding out anything. Getting my hands on any book that I could, with regards to the supernatural.

It wasn’t just ghosts. It was because the paranormal, although very heavily focused on hauntings and ghosts nowadays. It’s not just about that particular flavour, if you like. But I’ve always had an interest, strong interest, in the unexplained. And I think I’m probably very nosy and that’s why I enjoyed it so much. Trying to find out what the answers are behind these things. And why these things happen to some people. I think it’s probably one of my biggest interests.

And also, for the fact that there’s some very strong research coming through that shows that we need to look a little bit more in depth, at the possibilities of the brain conjuring some of these things for us, of its own little accord. That’s a huge interest of mine also. So is this sort of thing with regards to apparitions and the supernatural. Is this an external thing? Or is it actually an internal thing?

I’ve actually seen some research on that and it’s really interesting. And I think one of the research bits I read was they played there’s low frequency sound?

Yep, yeah. Low and high frequency sounds, EMF, all that sort of thing can interfere with the firing synopsis of various parts of the brain. So that’s also a very interesting part of it. There’s a few neurosurgeons that are now becoming very interested in this side of things as well. So, there’s some neurosurgeons that work alongside parapsychologists and look into this sort of thing, yeah.

Oh wow, now that’s really interesting. Well of course it makes a lot of sense, doesn’t it?

It does, yeah. There was actually a neuroscientist on the parapsychology course I did with Edinburgh University. There was a neuro-chappy on there. Neuroscientists, I think he called himself. But yeah, very interesting.

Fascinating. Oh, I’m so jealous. I would have loved to have done something like that. Cause it sounds really interesting, but maybe we can go into that a little bit later. Did you yourself actually experience anything paranormal when you were younger that really tripped you off?

I don’t think there was anything that really sort of tripped me. Or got me going. But I did have experiences. Now that when I think back on it, they don’t really seem like much. But at the time as a child, I was absolutely terrified. Right. I think probably my biggest experience was when I was… oh God, how old was I? I would have been about 18 or 19 when I’d come back from clubbing. Illegally, of course.

I come back from clubbing and I was sitting on the couch at about 3 a. m. on my own with my cat. And I felt incredibly cold for absolutely no reason. And my cats were on two separate chairs in front of me. And there was a third cat that was next to me. And all at the same time they lifted up their heads. They were fast asleep. And all at the same time, they lifted up their heads. And they just looked in the same direction. Very intently. And our lounge had three steps down into it. It was a sunken lounge. And I watched the cat’s heads. It was almost like they were watching someone walking down the stairs.

And then their heads followed whatever they were looking at. And I honestly, I’m still very much this way. Very logical and rational and grounded, being an earth sign. And I just thought there’s an insect. They’re looking at an insect. And then the insect, we’ll call it, was right by my side. The cats were looking right next to me. Including the one that was at the far end of the three-seated couch that I was on. And their heads went down, so my head went down. And then I saw the couch actually sink next to me. Like someone who just sat on it. Well, Marianne, I tell you what I levitated and I didn’t run up that very long hallway. I actually treated air up that very hallway. Left all the lights blazing. Left the stereo on still.

And my mum got up in the morning and said: You know, you left all the lights blazing. You left the hallway door opening. You left the television blaring last night when you came to bed. I had to get up at four am and shut it down. And I’m like, oh yeah, yeah, sorry about that. But I was absolutely terrified! And I think that was probably after. Probably about after a good, I don’t know, year after that. After I actually got over the initial shock and horror. Cause, it was horror as far as I was concerned. I started then I’m like, right, I really, I need to know what was happening here. So I started delving back into it all with a vengeance, I suppose you could say. And I haven’t really stopped since then. To be quite honest.

Wow. I can totally… Sorry, I laughed so hard. It’s so funny because I can just picture it, you know, in my mind’s eye so clearly. And of course, I will tell you that I’m a medium, but even if that happened to me, that would initially give me a fright. Because that’s a normal human reaction. It’s your,

oh, definitely.

fight or flight reaction. It kicks in.

Definitely. I bolted. I absolutely bolted. Never became so sober so quickly in all my life, honestly, I’ll never forget that as long as I live. But that was probably my first experience that terrified me, I would say.

Well. That would be terrifying. Especially to a young person who really has no knowledge. Or no understanding, of this sort of thing. Of course, you’ve got nothing to gauge it by.

No. No.

It would be totally terrifying. I absolutely get that. And so, throughout your life then, you continued this interest. When did you start doing your formal studies on this area?

I think I could probably say it came along in stages. I think it started with… to be quite honest, I’d say being obsessed with it all and having some comments from friends, how unhealthy it was. And I think it stepped itself up, bit by bit. Without me even realizing it, to be quite honest, I mean, as a child, it started as reading scary stories in books, you know? And I remember one of my school reports that came home. And my dad laughing and saying, Oh, yeah? Well, good luck for her to try and do that. And my teacher mentioning that ‘Tracy is a voracious reader. But I would really like to see her broaden her scope of material. Instead of just scary supernatural stories.

That was written on my report. And that never happened. Poor teacher. That never happened. It was always that type of genre of books that I would go for. And I mean, I would go through two or three in a day. I was that sort of reader. I just consumed everything I could get my hands on. And then it probably went from reading scary stories, to reading more research papers. More academically written books on the subject. And then I started getting interested in psychology. Which has helped a great deal, in all honesty, with this sort of thing.

Oh gosh, yes.

In my mind, it’s the other side of a double-sided coin. Right. You can’t be truly well rounded in this field, if you don’t take in that aspect.

Oh, absolutely. A hundred percent, agree.

So that came into it as well. Then also history. I started getting very interested in history because I’m originally from the UK. But all my relatives lived in England. It was only me, mum and dad on the other side of the world. So, I was very interested in where did I come from? And who are my kin? And this sort of thing. And of course, again, that leads into this as well. And then I sort of brought in the research aspects. Which is believe it or not? Heavily a part of paranormal investigation. And that is researching the locations that we go to. And I don’t mean just reading up about it. I mean, reading up about the legends. And the myths, and the anecdotal stuff that’s actually attached to the property that we’re going to.

And trying to figure out where that truth line is. You know? Is it urban legend? Did these things actually occur at this property? And looking into all of that. And that became quite interesting to me as well. So, all these little bits were starting to come together. I suppose you could say. And then I went back to England. And then of course, that gave me the opportunity of locations, location, location.

Oh, lucky you.

Yeah. So, I just did a lot of solo, vigil stuff. So, I spent a lot of time on my own visiting these locations, seeing if anything. I could pick up on anything.

Yeah. That’s right… And you did solo.

I did solo vigils, yeah. So, I wandered around a lot of places on my own. Spent hours and hours going to various haunted locations. But half of the locations I went to, I didn’t actually even know any background on. I just went to a particular monument and felt things. And saw, or got vibes, as people say. And then find out years later that, yeah, that was actually some haunted battlefield on eleven-sixty-eight or whatever. Where over a thousand people died. And then I can understand why I was feeling the way I was feeling. And, I’ve seen a couple of strange things at various historical places while I was over there.

And probably seen a very famous ghost. Looking as solid as you and I. And I didn’t even realize it was a ghost til about two years later when I was sitting back in New Zealand. And I was reading one of my scary books. And I found his story in there. Went running down the hallway. And said to my mother; my God, that’s exactly what I experienced. Exactly what I experienced.

So very interesting.

Can I say, it was a ghost? No, I can’t. But it was exactly like the story I’d found in the book. And I saw what I saw, looking like a live human being. Looking like a normal human being. Apart from the fact that his clothes were out of sync. But I actually thought it was a guide. And the guide was dressed up. So, when they came back and said to me, the place is shut. I said, no, it’s not. The guide was out sitting in the rocking chair on the porch. I saw him. So, he must’ve ran like God knows what to shut that place up. Anyway, it wasn’t a guide.

That’s really interesting. I can say that there’ve been a couple of times when I’ve seen spirit as clear as you and I.One was fairly recently when I was living in North Carolina. I was sitting on our porch and I saw this woman to the left of me on the side of our balcony. Which was about six foot off the ground. Our little decking area. And it never occurred to me at the time that I could see her head and shoulders. And her chest, above the porch.

Right. Yes. Yep.

Physically impossible. And I said to my husband, cause my back was injured. And I couldn’t move. I said, Look Jay… Jay, you’d better go and check. There’s somebody at the side of the house. And as he walked past the phone to check, the phone rang. And he picked it up. And it turned out it was my in-laws. Saying that my sister-in -law’s mother, was seriously ill in hospital. That’s when I realized that was who I was seeing.

Right, okay. A crisis apparition.

No. And he hung up. And then he went to look. And I said, no, Jay, don’t worry. That’s Rhonda’s mum. She’s not ill. She’s passed. And he said, no, no, she hasn’t. Then the phone rang again, that instant. To say that she had died.

Right.

And she was as clear as you and I. Cause, I’d only met her once, it took me a minute to recognize who she was. And she looked so much better than she did when I met her.

They’ve done some research and some statistics around this. And it’s quite surprising the amount of people who they suggest, have probably seen a ghost. And not even realized that they’ve actually seen a ghost. Based on the story that’s been related. Which I assume would be along the lines of mine. That they saw somebody there that they thought was the curator. Or a guide. Or whatever. Dressed in the clothing of the day. Only to find out that there’s no such person there. Or, you know, whatever the case may be. So, it’s quite high, the statistics of people supposedly seeing spirits. And not realizing that what they’re looking at is an apparition. As opposed to a solid, living human being.

Very interesting. Because people, I guess, have this Hollywood idea that ghosts are all transparent. Or all white. And that no, that’s not the case at all. Some are. But some are as solid as you and I. And you would never know!

That’s right. And also, the amount of people that have related their story, and then said that they were talking to a ghost. For instance, I think of one off the top of my head. A woman who saw a friend walking in the street. Not realizing that friend was actually something like, I don’t know, 3000 miles away at the time. And spoke to him solidly and said, come for tea, back to my house. And took him back to her house. And had tea and then decided that he had to leave.

And then only to find out that it couldn’t have possibly been that person. Because he was three thousand miles away at the time. I find that really fascinating because now there you’re going into the area, depending on the circumstances, crisis apparitions. Or doppelgangers, or,

bilocation.

Bilocation. All that sort of thing. So, I find that really interesting. And there’s a lot of facts. Or I was just going to say, a lot of research. And a lot of documented stories around bilocation, that cannot be explained. That’s the sort of thing that I’m interested in.

Yeah, fascinates me. Crisis apparitions always fascinate me. There’s so many stories. And for listeners who don’t know crisis apparition is like a spirit, person who will appear to a loved one in times of great distress. Or when they died. And the person doesn’t know about it. And this happened so often during the wars. When there wasn’t the instant communication, we have these days. Mothers would very often wake and find their sons sitting at the end of the bed. Saying, mum, help me! Or mum, I’m sorry. Or stuff like that. And then they would find out days, or weeks later that their son, at that moment, had died.

That’s right, yeah. They’re all very interesting. I think one of the big areas, because I’ve had an experience. Well, which I suppose. I would class as this. Or a kind of version of it. And that is time slips. I’m very, very interested in time slips. I had an experience in New Zealand at a well-known, haunted location. And the most interesting thing about it all was that I wasn’t the only one that had the experience. The person that was with me had exactly the same experience as I did. So, I had somebody to corroborate everything I saw. Because they saw exactly the same thing. And it was a person that was my ex-partner. And at the time absolutely been with him for well over a decade. And fully trusted everything that he said to me. So, I had no reason to disbelieve that he was not seeing, what I was seeing. I mean, in all honesty. He’s the type that if he hadn’t seen it, he would have turned around and told me to get my crazy ass in the car, and I’m tripping out.

That’s the sort of attitude that I would have got from him. But he backed up everything that I said I saw. We even sat in the car for a period afterwards going, what the F was that? And he said, I don’t know? And I was like, did we actually see what we just saw? Is that real? And he’s like, I don’t know? But I’m telling you that I saw this. And I saw that. And I saw the other. And I’m like, and that’s what I saw. And that was when we found out that what we had seen, we could not possibly have seen. Because there hadn’t been any alterations done at all to the property. And we were talking about different walls. Everything!

Right, so you actually saw this building as it previously used to be?

I’m assuming that’s what it was. That’s the only thing I can think of. I don’t know, maybe it was what it was going to be in the future?

Oh, that brings us to a whole different discussion.

Exactly.

There’s an episode that I did, which is actually one of my favourite episodes. And I did over 30 hours research on it. It was like writing a thesis really. It’s called;  ‘A Glitch in the Matrix – A Holographic Reality?’.

Oh, okay. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

And I went into. Glitches, like that. I went into parallel time slips. Parallel dimensions. I researched all the current theoretical physicists, and their research on this being a holographic reality. It, was really interesting. Really, really interesting. And I also did an episode on time slips as well. But actually, not that uncommon, are they?

No.

And in my opinion, the two go together.

But then that comes down to things that, you know. When you talk to certain scientists, they say times not linear. And it’s like a piece of string. And it loops, back on itself. And all the… thinking about all the sayings that I’ve read. And we just don’t know nothing, Marianne. Do we? I mean, let’s face it, we really don’t know anything about the universe in which we live.

No. But, mind you, we don’t know everything about the sea either.

Nah! That’s true. That’s the whole thing. It just fascinates me, that people have these experiences. And I just want to know, what’s behind this experience? And why did it happen to that individual? So, I guess that’s what fuels me, with what I do.

I totally get that. That’s one of the reasons why I’m into my 12th season of this podcast. It’s a curiosity. And the wanting to know. And hearing people’s experiences, I’ve learned so much from my guests. I love my guests. Because, with every guest I have, I learn something new. Or something about myself that I wasn’t aware of. Like my own biases. And my own prejudices. And stuff like that. It’s always a learning experience, which is really awesome. So, you did all of this research and you started doing academic studies in it.

Yes, I went and did a course with the University of Edinburgh on parapsychology. So, I really enjoyed that. It was an introduction to parapsychology. And I guess from my perspective, it was not based on what… it was more based on the research and the testing of mediumship abilities. Um, psychokinetic abilities. Poltergeist abilities. Because they now believe that that stems from an individual’s ability. Not an external force. There’s very strong evidence to suggest that it is actually centered around… there is a, what do they call it? I can’t remember now, but there is a power subject, if you like, in a poltergeist case. And that a lot of the time it can be connected to psychological imbalances. And a particular individual that manifest in this external aspect of things being moved, noises, things like that. If you take that trigger, which is the individual that it manifests around.

If you take that trigger out of the equation, you are left with no poltergeist activity. So, that is something that they looked very heavily at. Basically, what we did in the course was a lot of things that could be backed up under controlled environments. Or that could be scrutinized further under controlled environments. Which haunting and apparitions do not happen in controlled environments. We had to write a piece each that we had to share with the full discussion on any part that we wanted to, that interests us the most. And I think when I wrote my particular paper, I, when I stood back and I looked at what I’ve written, I was kind of shocked to be quite honest. Because I taught myself something without even thinking I taught myself something. Because when I read it, I thought to myself, actually, I’ve just actually made a breakthrough myself. With what I believe and how I view things.

Interesting.

Because I’m saying here in this paper that seeing haunting phenomena, or apparitions was in a laboratory setting. Or was in a completely controlled setting. It’s just never going to happen. Because these things don’t, they’re spontaneous. They manifest spontaneously. They’re not something that we can say, okay, it’s going to happen at this time. And this place, on this day. And be able to get a recorder there and tape it occurring. And have witnesses. And standby and all these sorts of things. It’s like being a human being. They’re spontaneous. We’re spontaneous individuals. And considering that some people believe that these apparitions are those, of those, who have previously lived before us. For a great part, they manifest spontaneously. So, what we looked at in the course… unfortunately, didn’t contain a lot of what I wanted to get right into. Just because it was very hard for them to be able to enter that area of haunting phenomena.

Right. To quantify it.

To quantify it. We were from all over the world. So, it’s not like they could organize a field trip for the students, you know? To go and do an investigation somewhere. But I learned a great deal from the course. I learned a great deal that helps me with paranormal investigating. About the controlling of the environment in which you’re working in. Which as I say, is incredibly difficult to do on a paranormal investigation. But there are steps, that we take as a minimum. There are things that you can do. It’s not about having a laboratory setting. But it’s about controlling the environment as much, as is humanly possible.

Absolutely. That brings us on to you setting up this paranormal investigation group.

Right!

Can you tell us about that?

So, I’d spent a lot of time doing it solo. And I’d done a little sedge way into another area that I was exploring as well. For probably about a decade, which was the area of the occult and the esoteric. So, I decided that I was coming back to my first love. Which was the paranormal and hauntings. I decided to look for a group to join when I was back in New Zealand. So, I found a group to join. I joined the group on the very first night that I went out with them on an investigation. I met another lady from the same town that was joining them for the first time as well.

So, we probably did, I don’t know, half a dozen investigations with this group. And we had a bit of a discussion. And we decided, you know what? We think we can start our own group. And we’re gonna do it our way. So, we did. And we ended up straight away with about twelve investigators and went out. And that was back in two thousand and ten. And we’ve been going ever since.

Sometimes we’ve gone into hiatus. Where we haven’t been actively out investigating. But I’ve been doing research. And that’s where I’ve stuck to myself. I’m very much a hermit. So I live in my cave researching nine times out of ten. And I only come out of my property, which is a beautiful rural property, to investigate. And go to the slave market three days a week. And that’s it. Most of the time I’m in my cave researching. And yeah, finding out more. Learning more. Always learning, always, always learning. So then, we started the Quantum Foundation.

That’s the name of your foundation that does the investigations?

Yes, yes. Yeah, and we investigate everything. It’s not just ghosts and hauntings. People can go to the website and see what we will investigate. And cryptids. The whole nine yards. Divine intervention claims. All sorts of things we do. It’s not just the ghost and the hauntings. The ghost and the haunting things are probably personal favourites, of probably about eighty percent of the group. And it’s not like we don’t actively go out searching for properties to investigate. They drop into our laps.

Right. That’s the best way.

Yeah. We get asked to go out and, yeah, and investigate. And we do that.

You’ve already answered the question I was going to ask. So, I’ll go on about that. Can you tell us perhaps about the most compelling, or intriguing case you’ve worked on? And what made it stand out from other investigations?

I don’t really think I’ve got one. The only investigation that I can think of And I’ve investigated the place twice now. Would be Larnach castle. And it stands out, not for the reason that everyone would think it would stand out. It stands out because of the mundane issues that we had. With just the vast sized property that we were investigating. And the atmospheric conditions of investigating in such a large property. IE, the echo everywhere throughout the building. The actual castle itself. How the noise carried hugely. You could be on the third floor and you could hear people downstairs. Clear as a bell! So, it made investigating the property quite problematic, with regards to trying to secure any form of data, that wasn’t compromised in the way of audio. Yeah. So that’s, that stands out in my mind. But not for the reasons that the listeners would probably want.

Could you please explain to the listeners, because the majority of my audience are actually not New Zealand based…?

Right. Okay.

What, and where Larnach castle is?

Okay. Well, Larnach Castle is not a castle for starters. But it’s, I think the second one that New Zealand has, that could be remotely classed as a castle. In this country. It’s a large manor house. And do you know what? By European standards, it’s a small manor house. It’s just a very fancy, old building built on stone, shall we say. And that is in Dunedin. In the South Island of New Zealand that was built by William Larnach. Who I believe originally was from Scotland. And there’s quite a tragic backstory to the Larnach family.

So, Mr. Larnach’s first wife died. He married his second wife, which was his wife’s half-sister. So, keep that one in the family. Which in those days was the done thing, you know, that did happen. And then she also died. So, he married his third wife. Who was, I think half his age? At least half his age. If not a quarter of his age. And she allegedly ended up having an affair with his youngest son. William Larnach was also a politician. He was a merchant bank, a politician. Involved in mining. Had lots of different companies. And he ended up in severe financial trouble.

So apparently, as the story goes, in parliament buildings, he got a letter. And he, within, I think it was 30 minutes of receiving this letter. Which apparently greatly upset him. He shot himself in the head. His oldest son did the same thing and shot himself in the head years later. His oldest daughter died of typhoid at the age of 29. So, there was a lot of tragedy. And they believed that. William Larnach, one of his wives. And his daughter. Haunt the castle and surrounding grounds. And the stables, which is now accommodation, is haunted as well. So, there’s a little bit more there, than just the Larnach family though.

Right. And did you actually obtain any evidence that was usable from that location?

I don’t believe so, no. But then I’m very stringent on what I deem as being evidence. I think evidence is a word that is thrown around in the paranormal field, far too easily. So, if we’re talking about in terms of evidence. The old adage, will it stand up in a court of law? Springs to mind immediately. I don’t see anything that has been captured within the paranormal field standing up in a court of law. So therefore, I don’t feel that there’s ever been any evidence captured, to support the claims of the paranormal groups that are out there saying that this is a ghost.

I think really, in all honesty, that the paranormal field and the groups that are currently around, if they want to be deemed as being serious. Need to move away from looking for evidence. And be more concerned about the gathering of the data. And collating the data. And triangulating the data. Then and only then you might be able to look at the possibility that you have captured evidence.

That’s a good segue into the next question. What tools and techniques do you use during your investigation? And are there any particular devices, or methods that you find most effective?

Yeah, absolutely. Let me break that down. Okay. So, our team is a very process driven team. Because I’m a very process individual. And so, when I’m running the cases. As the case manager. There are processes that I follow. And when we train our team members, there’s processes that we expect them to follow as well. So yes, there are techniques. I think the main one is the controlling the environment, as much as possible. So initially that will start off with us going around and ensuring that if it’s a bit, let’s just say we’re talking about indoor locations here. Ensuring that every single window is securely fastened. Every external door is locked. Every window, every door, both external and external will be tested.

And that will be for any sort of breeze that can rattle, or make any form of noise. So that if we capture something like that. Or we hear something like that, we then go Oh! You know what? That was just that door. It doesn’t actually close properly. So, if we see a door that slowly blows open, someone can turn around and go, Oh yeah, you know, it’s that window over there. Because it was open. And that door doesn’t actually shut properly.

So, no matter how much you pull it shut, it’s not going to stay shut. And the hinges are very easy to swing. So the slightest of breeze is going to make it… so it’s all those sorts of things, that we look at. When we go through and do our initial walkthrough of the property. So, we’ll test doors and see how heavy are they? How light are they? Are they going to swing open? Is there any windows near this door, where a draft could possibly come through and affect the door? And just so we’ve got all those mundane bases covered, if you like.

The next thing would be the documentation process of what we do. Nobody’s allowed to walk around a building on their own. No, one’s allowed to walk around the building, without being directed to go somewhere. So our team is split up into pairs. Everybody has to go two up. There’s reasons for that. One is, how I’m very health and safety conscious because I have a lot to do with that and my full-time role.

So, I also bring that into my part of my role, if you like. So, one is health and safety reasons. If somebody gets hurt. The other one also is a corroboration reason. So, if somebody turns around and says, I’ve seen this. Great! Thanks for bringing it to my attention. But I’m not going to put any great stock in that. Because you were on your own. And you could have mistaken that for something completely different.

So, okay, thanks. I’ll make a note of that. That’s pretty much how I’ll deal with it. I’m not discounting their experience. But I’m not putting a whole load of weight into it either. It’s not going to have a bearing on our investigation. It’s just a nice little anecdote to pop down on the documentation and keep. To see if anything matches up with that later on.

We normally look for three things to occur within quick succession. So, it might be an EMS meter going off. It might be catching a blur on the camera. And it might be someone hearing something. Or something being picked up on audio. But we look for three things to triangulate that, that happen within a very short time of each other.

Then we’ll start getting excited pretty much. Or a temperature drop, and an EMF rise, and a door slamming, you know. Three things like that. Everything is noted down. So, at any stage within the investigation, because I normally, with my health failing me now. I quite often work in our control space. And I’ll watch all the cameras. And I will direct the investigators to various places.

No investigator walks around without me knowing where they are, at any one stage. They are documented on paper. As being in this particular room with this particular person from ten-thirty-nine. Or from twenty-two-thirty-nine to twenty-three hundred. And then when they go to the next room, then it’s documented again. At twenty-three hundred, they move from the front bedroom to the lounge.

If they swap partners, which I like to do, mix people up. They don’t stay with the same person all night. Then, it’ll be documented that Tracy and Lisa split up as a team. And then Tracy and Kells went out and Lisa and Becks went out. So, the documentation process is like, really stringent. If somebody thinks that they have felt something. Or that they think that they’ve heard something audibly with their own ears. They radio back to me. And I make a note of that and the time that they said that they heard that. Or that they think that they saw that.

And that way that I can marry that time up that they radioed me. With the time on the camera, if we do pick up something on a camera. Or we do hear a noise on a camera. I can marry up those exact times. So, I can say, gosh, well that’s interesting because such and such thought she heard a door close at this time. And this door closed at this time. So, she’s actually hearing that door close. So not only have we got it on video, but we’ve actually got it in real time. As in somebody actually hearing it occurring. It’s all those sorts of little things.

Right. And I would tell you, that’s exactly how I operated my team as well.

As I say, you can’t 100 percent control the environment. But you can control it as much as possible. Like when we hold EVP sessions. I don’t need everyone have a free for all on the EVP. If Kells is going to hold an EVP session. Then Kells is going to hold the EVP session. Don’t jump in and ask questions. Because to my mind, it’s like me and you having a conversation and someone jumping into our conversation.

Correct.

It’s incredibly rude. This person is trying to have a conversation with whatever or whomever is out there. If she wants to open up the floor for questions, that’s entirely up to her. But it is her conversation to be had. And the other thing is those things that are out there, whomever or whatever they may be. May feel a particular connection, to a particular individual.

Correct, yeah.

So, they might start off talking to Kells. And if someone jumps in, then that’s it, they shut down. And you don’t hear from them again. So, we just watch little things like that as well. So, we always say Kells takes the EVP session. It’s not a twenty minute chitty-chat. It’s a five-minute conversation, max. And the reason why I say this is because, I’m the one that has to sit here and listen to this. And they take hours! When someone’s got forty-two…

They take hours and hours of work.

potential EVP sessions. And they’re 25 minutes each. I’ve got to sit through listening to that. So, if you run out of questions, stop. Don’t talk rubbish and ask the same questions three times. And don’t keep asking the spirit. Can you do that again for me? Can you do that just to confirm it’s you? Yeah. Can you do it again for me? Treat them how you would like to be treated, if you believe it’s a spirit.

That’s exactly how I was. And one of the things I was always really adamant about when we went to a place, was that we introduced ourselves.

Yeah, I always say that as well.

Cause it’s just, you know, spirit are only people without physical bodies. And the same courtesies apply to them, as you would give living people. That’s my opinion anyway.

Even I say to people, even if you don’t believe that, I mean, we don’t even know what a ghost is. Let’s face it. Nobody is even one-hundred percent, can categorically, emphatically, produce evidence to show that a ghost is A. Or a ghost is B. Or a ghost is C. We don’t know what a ghost is.

We have theories. Just like we have theories in the paranormal. But we don’t know. So, when you’re talking to, some people might describe it as the soul of somebody who once lived. Or the spirit of a human being that once lived. But somebody else might think that the spirits are actually beings from another dimension entirely. And they never lived at all, in our dimension.

So, it brings in to play a lot of belief systems. We try and stay away from that as much as possible. Like we don’t have a blessing before we go into places. If you want to do that yourself, that is fine. Go off and do that. But as a group, we do not do that. You are responsible for your own spiritual well-being. I’m not responsible for it. And neither is the rest of the group. As, in respect of, I’m not responsible for making you feel better. If you want to do it. Do it in your own belief system. That’s fine.

But I mean, can you imagine? You’ve got a Buddhist. You’ve got a Hare Krishna. You’ve got a Wiccan. You’ve got a Christian. And you’ve got a Jewish person. On the same team. You’re going to spend an hour and a half doing that, for that religion, before you get to the investigating.

So, take care of your own personal stuff. And do it however you want to do it. As I said to someone in AC. How do you take care of yourself? I said, what do you mean? How do I take, well, you know, like spiritually, how do you take care of yourself? And I just tell the buggers, that they’re not to come anywhere near me under any circumstances. And I don’t want to see them. They can talk to me. But I don’t want them to visualize.

Boundaries.

Yeah. And they’re like, why? And I’m like, because it’ll terrify the hell out of me. I’m happy to see them sitting back on a monitor. I’ll watch through the monitor. Thanks, very much. Don’t materialize in front of me. That’s my boundary. And that’s what I take when I go out on investigations. It’s always in my head. And I’ll always say it. Let me know that you’re here, but you do not need to materialize in front of me. I don’t need that much evidence. Thanks very much.

Yeah. Boundaries are always so important. Now, you mentioned some tools that you use.

Yes.

So, what are the specific tools that you use during an investigation? And can you provide definitions for some of the things you talked about like EVP for those listeners of mine, who may never heard the term before?

Sorry, sorry. EVP is Electronic Voice Phenomena. Again, it’s a theory that those from other dimensions, or other realms, can imprint their voices on recorders and we can hear them.

Not when they actually happen, just on the recording.

Just on the recording. Yep. There’ll be some times when people will actually hear it. And what we call in real time. I heard that in real time, meaning I heard that now. Well, I just heard someone say, Hey! Did you hear that? And everybody else will go, no. And you’ll go back and you’ll listen to the recorder. And yep. Clear as a bell, there’s a hi! Now, there’s a lot that’s said about audio pareidolia. And that is, your brain needs to make sense, out of sound. So, it could be the machinery of the recorder itself. Making a noise that comes through in the recording. But your brain is saying, Oh, my God, can you hear that?

It says whatever it says or whatever you think it says. So, there is an element of that. So, there’s different classes of EVP, or electronic voice phenomena. We work with the class system. Which is class A, B, and C. It’s quite simple. Class A, you cannot confuse. It is as clear as me talking right now. There’s no mistaking what was said and there’s no mixing that up with the sound of the cogs in your recorder being recorded.

Or a noise being recorded two streets away. Because some of these recorders are that sensitive. They will pick up things like that. Class B is, I’m eighty percent, ninety percent sure it says this. And everybody that listens to it, pretty much says it says the same thing. They might get one or two words different. Class C is you got a lot of people saying a lot of different things.

They agree that there’s something there, but you can’t quite make out what it is definitively. And one person says, oh it says… How are you? And another person says, no, it doesn’t. It says, where are you? And another person says, no, it doesn’t. It says, where you been? You get, do you know what I mean? So yeah, that’s a class C.

So, we run within that class system and we categorize, if you like, our EVPs, the majority of the EVPs that come through are class C. If it’s a class C, it’s in the bin, as far as I’m concerned. I mean, we keep it. But we don’t turn around and say that we got this EVP. Class A and Bs, we’ve had quite a few of. And we do keep those.

And we do say, listen, I don’t know what this is. I’m not saying it’s paranormal. All I’m telling you is there was no one, I was in that room. There was no one else in the whole building. No one spoke. That sort of thing. So, we never confirm anything with paranormal. Because we can’t emphatically turn around and say that it’s paranormal. We can say that we don’t have any mundane explanations for that occurring. And we leave it at that. No one can ever confirm something is paranormal. That brings me back to the facts that nobody knows what a ghost is. In the first place. Nobody has any definitive captures that they could deem as being evidence.

I’ve seen some pretty gnarly evidence. Or some pretty gnarly data that’s been captured. But if teams aren’t doing the documentation process behind when that data is captured. And being able to say that they can. For instance, they’ve caught an apparition somewhere. And they know nobody else was in that vicinity at the time. Prove it. How do you know no one else was in that vicinity at the time? Can you show me cameras, locked off cameras? Can you show me locked off cameras where that shows every other single member of your team? So, there’s all that sort of thing that comes into play with it, which segues me into the talking about the EVP.

So, a voice recorder is a really handy tool to have. We have two different types. We’ll have a standard voice recorders for taping interviews with witnesses. But then, we will have a voice recorder that is deemed to be a very sensitive voice recorder for conducting EVP work.

Right. And these are digital?

These are digital recorders. We don’t use analog recorders. We use digital just because analog, the machinery noise is a lot of what is taped with analogs. So, we can get away with it with the digital nowadays. Cameras. Yes, we use cameras. So, there we use a selection of cameras. So, we’ll use normal cameras.

We’ll use DSLR cameras. We will even use thirty-eight millimeter film cameras. And we use full spectrum cameras. Which they’re called full spectrum cameras, but that’s actually a bit of an oxymoron. Because they don’t see in gamma rays and they don’t see an X ray. So, they’re not full spectrum cameras. I prefer to refer to them as multi spectrum camera. Because they see the light range, if you like.

We use UV as well. And we use infrared. So, they’re all the different types of cameras we use. So, we use still cameras. And we use video cameras. The video cameras are roaming cameras. We use CCTV infrared cameras for locked off cameras. Which are cameras that are static and in a room. And it’s just recording whatever’s going on in that room. It might be nothing. It might be a whole bunch of insects flying by the light. And then there is also the thought of using, what do you call it? Polaroid cameras. There’s been some interesting things captured on Polaroid cameras. But the way we snap, no, digital cameras are the only way to go.

Yeah, you just take so many.

So, every time you snap, it’s three of the same thing. So, it’s click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click in another direction. Because there’s just that one click, might have something in it. That’s how quick things can change.

Absolutely.

So, we’ve covered the types of cameras we use. We’ve covered the voice recorders that we use.Torch. Absolutely, categorically needed. Pen and paper. Again, needed. Even if it’s just folded up and put in your back pocket. That’s why we try and run a control unit, so we don’t need to have our investigators doing that. We use electromagnetic field detectors. There’s a theory within the paranormal field that spirits or ghosts can use electromagnetic fields as a way of communicating. And to also manifest.

We don’t use it in that respect. We used our meters to eliminate high electromagnetic field, based off microwaves, great big chillers, bridges, ovens, radio transmitters outside, telephone lines. All sorts of things. Bad wiring in the wall. So, we’ll use it as a means of elimination. Temperature. So, you’ve got two different types of temperature. These are your basics. Temperature guns.

Temperature guns do not measure the atmosphere. They do not measure the air. So you see it all the time on these stupid TV programs. Where they, they’ve got a laser gun. And they put it on something and they go, Oh, the air temperature’s this. No, it’s not the air temperature. It’s whatever that laser’s sitting on is what you’re measuring. And you’re not measuring it accurately. Unless you are within twelve centimeters from it. So, we do that. The reason why we have temperature guns, is that we measure the external and the interior temperature, of the walls on a property. That is so that we get readings throughout the course of the night.

We will go around and do that again and again and again. And it will show a general cooling down as the night progresses, and goes into the wee hours of the morning. Of the properties. So that if we do get a massive temperature drop, we can actually say that well when we did it at twelve-thirty it was this. When we did it at one o’clock it was that. When we did it at one-thirty it was this, so you can see. And not someone doing it at ten-thirty and going, it’s twelve degrees. And then doing it at four am and going, Oh, my God, we’ve had a massive temperature drop.

It’s only six degrees now. Do you know what I mean? So yeah, that sort of thing. And you need an ambient thermometer for that, that read the air temperature. Not a temperature gun that reads solid. The temperature gun is good for what I just explained. But, it’s also good for when something has moved. So if you’ve got a trigger object. And you’ve traced around it to see if the spirit is, or the ghost is, going to move that during the course of the evening, you can actually take a reading on that item.

Or if you see something levitate, for instance. You can take a reading on that item to see what temperature that item is reading. Some people say that they’ve done that and it’s read incredibly hot after they’ve witnessed something moving. Not normally cold, funny enough. It’s normally really hot. So, you can take the temperature of apports. So apport’s the things that manifest in front of you.

Oh, we had that.

Yeah, so that’s what they’re really good for. And really, in all honesty, that’s all you need. Anything else? I mean, the field is just awash with gadgets. It really is. And these gadgets, none of them find ghosts. There is no gadget that has been built to discover ghosts. Every single piece of equipment out there has been designed for something else, outside of the paranormal world. And repurposed for use within the paranormal world. It’s a big money-making thing these gadgets. So don’t worry about gadgets, don’t need gadgets. You need a damn good video recorder. You need a damn good camera. And you need a good voice recorder. And a torch. And a pen and paper. And all the rest you do not need.

Do you know what I found useful? Is a compass.

Compass is really useful. You can do a makeshift compass if you want. Or purchase a compass, very easily, from a sports shop. The only big thing that I would say is a lot of people use their phones on paranormal investigations. Please don’t. Please turn them off. Don’t even put them on flight mode. Because even when you put them on flight mode, they are still emitting small EMF fields. So just turn them off completely.

There’s no reason why you should need your phone on, when you’re in a paranormal investigation. Don’t use it as camera. You don’t need it for that. Don’t use it as voice recorder. Get far better things that work. That you know are not artifact-y. Or are going to produce artifacts. And that’s pretty much all you really need, to be quite honest with you.

Totally agree. Are there any ethical considerations or boundaries that you and your team adhere to when conducting paranormal investigations? How do you navigate the line between respecting privacy and sharing any compelling evidence that you may collect?

Well, that one is pretty much worked out for us, in the non-disclosure agreement that we signed with clients prior to investigating. All our investigators signed non-disclosure agreements with the Quantum Foundation. And the Quantum Foundation signed the non-disclosure agreement with a client. So, the client stipulates exactly what they are prepared to let us do with anything that we have. A lot of the time on our website, we may go and do an investigation. But it will just come up on the website, residential. Nothing’s ever mentioned what town it’s in. What street it’s in, nothing. There’s no photos that go up about it. There’s no report that goes up about it. The only time that we will put reports up is when the client says, yeah, yeah, that’s cool. I don’t mind. It’s a business, it’s a historical building. And the client’s okay with it. But this all signed, sealed, and delivered prior to, and witnessed prior to, and documented prior to, actually going in and doing the investigation.

So that’s how we take care of what we show evidence wise. And what we don’t show. So, with regards to ethical considerations, we won’t do things like someone’s been murdered. So, we’re going to hold an EVP session to see if we can contact that spirit. That is disgusting. It sticks in my throat. And I find that absolutely vile. To be quite honest with you. Or anyone that’s missing. Any crimes, anything like that. No! That’s not what we do. I suppose the only time that we would even consider doing that, would be if the family came directly to us and asked us.

Would we attempt to via the means of conducting an EVP session and get hold of their missing daughter? I would probably still say no, in all honesty. It’s not something that sits well with me. And it’s not an area that I want this organization going into. And there is a great deal of teams nowadays, that are going to places where murdered people have been found. And holding EVPs, and having sessions there. Investigating. It’s actually really frowned upon by the rest of the community.

Yeah, that’s awful.

And disgusting.

Yeah, it really is. It’s capitalizing on…

yes, it is. Yeah. It absolutely is!

I totally agree with you on that. It’s just really awful. Now, one question that I know my listeners would be really interested in, is have you ever had a personal encounter or experience during an investigation that really frightened you and how did you cope with that?

No, I haven’t. Oh, yes, I have. Yes. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. Yes, I have. I’ve had this experience twice. And it’s the same experience. And that was growling right behind me. Like right at the back of my head. And how did I cope with that? I froze! Both times. Absolutely froze. Couldn’t move.

That would be a normal reaction.

Couldn’t move. And all the hairs on my body stood up. That was fear that… you know, when people say, oh, I went and did an investigation. And oh, my hair were prickling.  Insinuating that it was the spirit. Or something around them that was making that happen. That’s your own body making you do that. That was fear, honey.

I’ve had it happen twice. I’ve had it once when I was completely alone and I was in a garage. And the garage was locked. I was out there on my own making an incense. And I always… cause, that was my workshop. And I always used to lock it. And it was at night. So, I went in there and I locked it. And I was convinced a dog had gotten in somehow and was underneath the car in the garage. There was nothing. When I could unfreeze from my workbench. I slowly moved around the car. Got down on all fours. Looked underneath and there was nothing. And then I stood up, took a big breath and ran for that door so quick.

Wow. You were very brave looking under the car.

I actually thought it was a dog. I swear to God, I thought it was a dog. It was so clear. And it wasn’t just a quick. Like that. It was, yeah. It was long. So, there was no mistaking it. The second time it happened, I wasn’t alone. I was with my team. We were all in the same room. And the same thing happened. I froze. Absolutely froze. Stock still. Now we had some trainees with us and the clients were there at the same time. So, I didn’t wanna freak anyone out. So, and it happened and I went. You hear me on the recording, it’s ridiculous. I go, [Garbled ,unintelligable, sound].

When someone first heard it and said, I dunno, what you were doing here, mate, but it sounds dreadful. And I, and just before that you can hear the growl. So, I said, you have a listen again. And just listen just before I do that. And that was when they went, took the headphones off. And threw them across the room.

Which is pretty much what I did when I first heard it on audio. But it’s clear. It’s clear as. And you hear me going [repeats unintelligible sound]. Because I wanted to say something. And then I thought, stop, because you don’t want to freak out these new people that are here. And you don’t want to freak the client out. The client has got to keep coming in this place.

And my co-founder said, what’s the matter? And I went, no, no, you’re all right. She goes, no, no, what’s the matter? I know there’s something the matter. And I went, no, you’re fine. And then she came up to me and she whispered what went on there. And I said, I’ll tell you later. I don’t want to freak them out. And she goes, okay, all right, fine.

I knew something had happened, and walked off. So, I heard it. And it does actually come out on the EVP. Quite clear. It’s a growl that turns into a laugh. So, it’s kind of very… yeah, actually thinking about it just makes the hairs go up on the back of my neck again. So, they’re probably the only two times, that I can say that it frightened me.

I wouldn’t say I was truly frightened. I would say I was frightened. And it freaked me out. But I wanted to know what it was. Again, back to, I want to know what it is. Hence, looking into the car to eliminate the fact that there was not a dog, that had crawled in on its belly, when I wasn’t looking, you know? But yeah, that they will probably be the only two times that, I mean, I’ve been in places, Marianne. And I felt very uncomfortable. There’s a difference between that and being frightened.

Oh, absolutely.

And I can walk in somewhere and I can go, Oh I don’t like it in this room. And I can walk out straight away. And people go, Oh, you’re frightened. And go, no, I just don’t like it. I don’t want to be in there. Yeah. I’m not going to force myself to do something that makes me feel, incredibly uncomfortable. Like I’ll say to people, you go in there. You go do an EVP in that room. Cause I ain’t going in that room. And if they’re quite happy to go do the EVP, then that’s fine. But don’t ask me to, if I don’t like that space. Cause all that’s going to do, is hype me up psychologically, and I’m on an investigation. That’s the last thing that I need happening. I need everybody to be grounded.

Right. Absolutely. Wow. that growling. I have to say, I’ve heard that a couple of times too. One time I was actually at the Tavistock. And yes, one of my team members was being smart. And I was just about to pull him up. Because, you know, respect is huge. Respecting spirits. And then there was this real growl, everybody heard it. And it was audible.He got so shocked. And I said, look, what did I tell you about being respectful in places? When you come to places? And he never did that again. Ever.

Yeah. I actually have a bit of a different spin. Most people will turn around and say things like the demon and something really negative. I don’t actually believe in any of that. My personal belief is that, that is an indication that you are getting very close to the veil. Because in certain religions. There’s dogs that guard the entrance to the underworld.

Absolutely.

So, that’s what I believe I am hearing. I am that close to the veil. That’s what I’m getting. Because I’m literally standing at the entrance to the underworld.

Yeah. That’s a really good spin on it. I’m with you. I don’t believe in demons either. That’s not part of my belief system. But I had never thought of it in that manner. That’s a really good way of looking at it.

So quite often people go, Oh. my God, I heard a growl. Doesn’t that mean it’s demonic? This is the first time I’ve actually think I’ve told anyone, what I personally believe, that to represent.

Yeah. Thank you for sharing that. That’s actually something that I hadn’t considered. Even though I knew that information. It just had never, sort of, connected the dots like that. Fascinating. Thank you for sharing.

Because I think maybe it was because I had it in two different, completely different instances. I was making a magical incense. I was in a ritual situation on my own. I was calling upon certain gods and goddesses, and I heard that growling. Why would a demon come and visit me when I’m making an incense for positivity and love, for instance?

Yeah, yeah.

So. Okay, there’s that one. And then there’s the other one that turned into a laugh afterward. There’s two different instances of hearing a growl. Two very different contextual situations. And that’s what made me think. Well, you’ve got the dogs that guard the entrance to Hades and the underworld, if you’re looking at Greek mythology. And various other religions as well.

How about the fact when I’m making this incense… cause I wasn’t doing ghost-hunting. I wasn’t doing anything like that. So how about the fact that yes, I was so close to that veil. And I was nearly penetrating it. That that was the guardians turning around and saying, I know that you’re getting close back off. I don’t know. That’s how I view it.

That’s a good way of looking at it. Because you would have been in a protective circle, when you were doing your incense making anyway. So, yeah. Very, very interesting, Tracey. Thank you so much for sharing that.

You’re welcome.

It certainly gave me another area to think about for sure. What are your thoughts on the roll of scepticism in paranormal research? Do you think it’s healthy to maintain a level of scepticism, even as a paranormal researcher? I know you sort of answered this.

You have to. I don’t believe that you can be an effective paranormal researcher if you do not carry around a bunch of scepticism on your shoulders. Now we’re not talking about dissing people’s personal experiences. Or every time someone comes up with something, saying it can’t be that because of this. We’re talking about using critical thinking. Logic, and rationale. To explain some of the circumstances. And some of the things that we experience, when we are out there investigating the paranormal.

That’s right.

Not everything that goes bump in the night, not every little blip on a photograph, is the deceased. Or a being from another realm. We need to look to mundane. Or look for mundane answers and explanations, before, we even begin to start looking at it possibly being a paranormal one.

Absolutely, 100 percent agree.

So, yes. You have to be skeptical. People who want to join our team and say, Oh. I’ve always believed in dice ever since I was a child. And I believe I see spirit. And I’m not interested straight away. I’m like, boom! Thanks very much. But we don’t have any vacancies at this time. Because that person, I can tell you categorically, is going to go into every single investigation, every little thing is going to be paranormal. And she’s going to see and hear everything. And probably make three quarters of it up out of her own psyche. I can’t have that. I’m not wasting my evenings doing that.

You can’t go in believing. You can’t go in disbelieving. Like I’ve said to people, I sit on the fence. Please find something to knock me off it. I want to believe. But I’m gonna have to be faced with some pretty damn, mind blowing, evidential data. Before I’ll turn around and go I 100% believe everything. Now, I believe it. I believe it totally. I believe we don’t know what this is. I believe perhaps we don’t have the advanced thinking to understand what we’re looking at.I believe it could actually be really simple and be nothing. I believe all of those things, and I would love something to come along and knock me off the fence.

Mm. Follow up from that. Do you feel that you’ve ever brought anything home with you from an investigation?

No.

Straight to the point. I like that.

Yep. Absolutely. Never. Not hitchhikers. People go on about them all the time. It’s not that easy. It’s not that simple. That’s what I tell people. I get a lot of people come to my group saying, Oh. I think I’ve got an attachment. It’s very rare. It’s very rare. Stop watching The Conjuring. Stop watching movies. Stop reading fictional books. Oh, I’ve got a demon in my house. What? Just because it frightens you, you think it’s a demon? Could it not be an astral being? Could it not be an elemental? So, it’s a demon. But that’s only because they’re fearful of it. And their only reason they’re fearful of it, is because, they don’t know what it is.

Exactly!

And demons are so rare. So rare, it’s not funny. Just because it’s negative doesn’t mean it’s a demon. It could be one really pissed off spirit.

That’s generally what it is, in my experience.

Or it could just be a frustrated spirit. But no, demons really rare. Hitchhikers. Really, really rare. And this is more again in your own psyche. And this is bringing me back to poltergeist activity. And there being an individual that is responsible for it. Emanating from an individual. So, it’s people who are under severe psychological distress. There was an old thing, years ago, back in the seventies. There was a spiritualist group got together. And I believe some of them were parapsychologists. And they believe that they create a ghost. They created this apparition.

Right. I remember reading all about that.

Yep. So, I believe this to a certain degree. And this falls back to that, we do not know again, the human brain. We do not know what it is capable of.

I have a friend. Who when she was married, and she used to get into arguments with her husband. When she was really angry with him. Glasses would fly out of her cupboard and smash at his feet! And that was all her energies.

Exactly. It’s the internal energy building up and bursting, if you like, externally. I’m again, that people going home thinking that they’ve gone to this and they brought something back with them. And this door was opening and closing. And this was happening. And how do you know that’s not you in your own psyche? Because you are convinced that you brought something home with you. So, you’re manifesting the stuff to happen yourself. Again, it comes back to, we just don’t know. These are all theories. And we don’t know. But picking up a hitchhiker? Yeah, stop going to the movies on a Friday.

Yeah, exactly. One last question I have for you is, are there any specific areas or aspects of paranormal research that you’d like to further explore? Or that you feel like are currently under-explored?

I think time slips are really under-explored, to be quite honest with you. And that could be just because I have a personal interest in them? But again, they’re a very spontaneous manifestation as well. So, but I think I would like to have a lot of in-depth research go on around. And statistically find out, how many people have experienced this sort of thing? Or where they’ve experienced this sort of thing? Do some correlation and see if it’s particular sites. Are there ley lines. Supposedly, if you believe in ley lines. Are there ley lines on those sites, to facilitate the manifestation of this time slip? Nobody’s looked into that. So, I think that needs a little bit of looking into.

Very cool. What are your thoughts on the future of paranormal investigation as a field of study?

On the future of it? I don’t know. I don’t actually think that the paranormal field… I think that’s down to the explosion of it becoming so popular. And there’s so many people out there attempting, or calling themselves paranormal investigation. When they don’t actually even understand the word investigation. So, I think that the field’s in a bit of trouble. I think there’s good people in the field doing really good things. But they’re few and far between. Compared to the masses that are out there on YouTube, putting crap out for clicks. And the rubbishy TV programs, where they’re faking stuff.

So, I think that the field needs a real big shake up. And I, dunno. I think that there needs to be some sort of formal acknowledgement, that there’s different types of paranormal investigators and researchers. And ghost hunters do not fall into that realm. I think, and it comes back to that word, investigate. And people understanding what that truly means.

And I think that there’s great things happening within the world of parapsychology. With regards to ecologists going out with paranormal things. And going into the field. And experiencing things. And working from that aspect. Which is great, because you can’t bring the field into a laboratory. You’ve got to take the laboratory to the field, if you like.

And so that’s coming forward. I think everyone has to remember that the paranormal is not a science. And it is not a pseudoscience either. A lot of people call it a pseudoscience. It’s not even. It’s not. It’s not even a fringe science. It’s a bunch of people stumbling their way around. Trying to work out what’s going down. And coming up with theories as best as they can. You cannot have a scientific method. When you are not a science. And I know there’s a lot of people that want to get it to where it is a science. I don’t think that’s ever going to happen. Certainly not going to happen in my lifetime. I’d be very surprised if it happens in my lifetime. I think we need to get back to basics.

I think we need to throw all these money-making gadgets, that people are making a fortune on. We need to throw them out. Chuck them in the bin. And go back to the absolute basics of the equipment that people used to use, to go out into the field. So yeah, I think that we need to just be a little bit more mindful of who we’re calling what. And what methods and techniques they’re using when they’re out in the field. Do the methods and techniques that they’re using when they’re in the field, actually warrant them being given the label that they’ve been given?

Wow. This has been a really interesting conversation, Tracey, and I really appreciate your time. Before we conclude our conversation, would you like to share with my listeners your website and social media. But also, for my listeners listening in on this episode’s page on the podcast website, www.walkingtheshadowlands.com. You will find all these links to Tracy’s site as well. So, if you don’t get a chance to write them down or you can’t remember them, don’t worry, just go to our website and you’ll find them there, www.walkingtheshadowlands.com.

Fantastic. Thank you very much for having me, Marianne. I really enjoyed it. And our social media details are as follows. So, we have a Facebook page called The Quantum Foundation. We have a Facebook group called Ghosts and the Paranormal in New Zealand. And we don’t just keep that to ghosts and the paranormal in New Zealand. And we have a website. So that is www.quantumparanormalnz.com. So, we’ve got lots of different things on the website there. It is about a year behind the eight ball with information being put up. Because I never find the time to do it. But I’ll try and do it before the end of the year. So yeah, that’s pretty much us. We do have a YouTube channel .And we do have an Instagram account. But we don’t use them at the moment. So, there’s no point in giving that out.

Awesome!

But thank you very much for having me. I really enjoyed it.

I have too, Tracey. Thank you so much.

I’d like to thank Tracey for sharing her very interesting journey with us and you all for listening in. Join us again on Walking the Shadowlands for more intriguing conversations and captivating stories from the world of the paranormal, the unexplained, and the mysterious. Don’t forget to subscribe and leave us a review if you enjoyed this episode. Stay curious. Stay open-minded, and keep exploring the shadows. Until next time, may the mysteries of the unknown continue to inspire you. This is Marianne, bidding you farewell from the shadowlands.

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