Divide and Conquer...

For those of you who haven't heard the news, I'm now a regular contributor for Who Forted? Magazine (those people who brought you Ghost Hunters, Inc.). What does that mean about Spooked! and its future? Well, a little bit of changes. But nothing too worrying.

For a long time now, Spooked! has become a jumbled pot of thoughts, odd new stories, supernaturally queer stuff, and whatever else I felt like writing at the moment. This blog has undergone a lot of reincarnations over the years, so it's been tough trying to toss everything I find interesting into it and not make it a chaotic mess. If I had a separate blog for all my interests, I'd probably have over a dozen blogs running at any given time. One is more than enough work, thank you.

Still, writing for WF? is a good opportunity for me to explore true history behind hauntings and those weird news stories I neglect so much these days in a different arena. That leaves the gay-themed paranormal stories and oddities for this blog, along with any other interesting paranormal bits and whatever books I happen to be working on at the moment.I think that'll help me balance things out a bit. I already have one post brewing for here, so apparently this separation of topics might be beneficial.

And I know what some of you might be thinking: He's writing for Who Forted? Great... now he's one of those people! If you mean someone who finds humor in the paranormal... well, that's been me all along. I haven't really changed. I've always done my best to strike a balance between believer and skeptic. And when people say and do stupid things, I don't think pretending it didn't happen is the best attitude. There still are some people in the paranormal field I do admire: Loyd Auerbach, Jeff Belanger, Joshua Warren, and many others. What I don't get it the superstar status we give people who haven't done much other than appeared on television.

I've been called many things over the years. Some of the best mudslinging has come when I've been accused of being a "non-believer" (though I've been attacked by skeptics for having a laugh at some of them as well). If saying many photos are dust or lens flare and not taking psychic claims at face value makes me a horrible person, then I'll gladly claim the honor. I've admitted to my mistakes (like the great "orb color theory" idea of a decade ago), but I won't back down on saying that a lot of paranormal claims have dull, simple explanations. Even so, there are things without logical explanation that do need to be looked into more. I've experienced and witnessed a few things I can't dismiss as illusion, mistaken identity, or psychological fabrication. So, I'm an optimistic skeptic? A skeptical believer? Something like that.

Regardless, I love a good ghost story. And I love digging through history to find the keys to hauntings and legends. Say what you will about the existence of ghosts; I think ghost stories are an important part of our history, culture, and society. I love doing my part to preserve these tales for future generations. How people perceive our world is just as important as how the world works. A little mystery makes even the worst times a little more bearable.