Where the grasp of traditional science reaches its end, there is a void of knowledge that cannot be illuminated in any certain terms by human inquiry. This space for the unexplainable has been designated as the paranormal. It encompasses a wide array of topics, including extraterrestrials, cryptids, psychic activity and ghosts. Dr. Brandy Stark, a USF alum and current professor at St. Petersburg College, was taken with the subject from a very early age.
“I started to read about the paranormal when I was 11 years old,” Stark said. “I read about Uri Geller, a spoon bender, and found him fascinating. From there, my interest branched into ESP and cryptozoology. Both of these tied into ghosts (as the paranormal was tied together at that time into a single lump category). I studied them from then on, though I had to fight a fear of ghosts with a fascination to see one.”
Her intellectual fascination with the paranormal eventually became a desire to perform investigations firsthand. In 1997, she started conducting a few studies locally. In 2000, she officially founded Serving Paranormal Investigation Reporting Information Through Study—also known as S.P.I.R.I.T.S. of St. Petersburg. Over the years she built up a team of experienced ghost hunters and paranormal connoisseurs. The organization now gets 15 to 30 requests for investigations a year. Of several hundred cases, there have been about 20 to 25 where Stark believes there is enough evidence to constitute a genuine haunting.
“Our mission is to treat both the living and the dead with compassion, respect and calmness. Our services are free. Of course we always hope to prove the existence of ghosts, but barring that we hope to bring comfort to those who call on us,” Stark said.
Investigations also provide an opportunity to “meet new people, research the history of the city and possibly have a paranormal encounter,” said Stark.
The symptoms of a haunting are varied, but can include strange dreams, shadowy manifestations, moving objects, household pets acting oddly, unexplainable sounds and temperature fluctuations. The S.P.I.R.I.T.S. team also encourages owners of potentially haunted places to look into the past of their buildings—especially when they were built and who might have lived and died there previously.
Paranormal research has become more widespread in recent years, but Stark believes S.P.I.R.I.T.S. of St. Pete has a unique perspective and a lot of experience compared to others in the field.
“I am an academic and studied this from the perspective of culture. My first thesis for a religious studies graduate degree was on the role of ghosts in ancient Rome. I did papers and presentations during my college years on Greek, Egyptian and early Christian concepts of ghosts. I also asked older ghost hunters questions and utilized them for advice. So, already from that perspective the S.P.I.R.I.T.S. is different. Many groups do not have an academic background. I also readily state the pseudoscientific aspect of paranormal investigations, which we try to counter with methodology. I do believe in a qualitative approach to investigations, which allows for the researcher to be the instrument and asks for greater depth from investigation participants.”
Though they relish the thought of discovering genuine hauntings, the S.P.I.R.I.T.S. crew never exaggerates their findings.
“We do not believe in hyping what happens, nor do we endorse the television shows,” Stark said. “We do not see this as entertainment but as a form of community service. We are secular and do not believe in scaring people. We want to empower home owners to deal with the situation.”
Dr. Stark and her fellow investigators look for an “overlap of evidence” to verify a genuine haunting. This involves finding multiple symptoms of activity, and visiting the same locations more than once to compare results.
A general consensus has developed in the field that there are several types of hauntings. In its brief history, S.P.I.R.I.T.S. has handled most of them.
“We have everything from residue haunting (memories trapped at a location), family apparitions (we get a lot of those), crisis apparitions (trying to get a message through), mild haunting and major haunting (rare),” Stark said.
Founded in 1888, St. Petersburg is an older city# though not as old as cities purported to be extremely haunted like St. Augustine, Fla., Savannah, Ga., and New Orleans. Thus Stark was surprised to see just how many investigations S.P.I.R.I.T.S. has gotten over the years. There even seem to be clusters of concentrated activity within St. Petersburg.
As a relatively new area of inquiry, paranormal investigation has garnered a lot of criticism. Stark and her colleagues think that this is a good thing.
“I agree that this field should be criticized. We have done a terrible job of creating a form of legitimate study. Many people have learned about investigation techniques from television, which I find inappropriate. Television does not depict a natural investigation and often uses dramatic angles, lighting, and whispering to create tensions in the viewers,” Stark said.
“There is little objectivity. Folks go at this from a sense of religious ideology, from folk lore, from superstition. I disagree with the fear mongering. We all must die and I believe that it is healthier to respect the dead, rule out natural phenomena and empower the living rather than antagonize the dead.”
“There is no agreement on philosophies, techniques, ethics or ideologies” within the field, Stark said.
“I do advise folks to have an open mind but not one so open that the brain falls out,” Stark said of the paranormal. “Be skeptical. But every now and again there is something that comes up that is hard to explain; focus on that.”
Stark will give a talk at St. Petersburg College Gibbs Campus on Thursday, Oct. 18 at 6:00 p.m. regarding the history of Halloween, death rituals and superstitions and the signs of a haunting.
S.P.I.R.I.T.S. of St. Petersburg’s website, spiritsofstpetersburg.com, includes extensive documentation of past investigations and applications for investigation requests.
Photo courtesy of Brandy Stark.
