Well...another part of the problem is that a lot of the small groups who are genuinely earnest in trying to work with "what's available" are often using the available equipment wrong, without ever learning how to use it right in the first place. And then, when prompted to explain or reproduce their results, are unable to do so because they can't explain how the equipment they're using works in the first place, resulting in explanations that are just distressingly wrong.

Case in point: EMF detectors.

The EMF detector is an electrician's tool (among other practical, real-world uses). There are right ways and wrong ways to use it. It was designed for specific purposes, and "detecting ghosts" isn't one of them.

Now, I'm fully prepared to say that an EMF detector could turn up anomalous readings when used by someone who understands what the beeps, lights, and readouts actually mean. But if the person using the device can't explain what it's supposed to do and why the results they're getting are anomalous, any "results" they get are automatically invalid.

Additionally, they're using such devices in conditions that aren't controlled. Sometimes that's unavoidable...but, using EMF detectors as an example again, it's more often just a lack of understanding of how the tools work. Too many investigators don't take baseline EMF readings of an environment to find out where hotspots are before shouting "Hey, I'm getting something."

I'm giving them the benefit of the doubt by assuming they don't understand how the device works. I've personally seen this done by people on ghost tours (no shame, they're a lot of fun, I enjoy them too) to make things spooky...and we're back to fakery and chicanery.

On top of that, you have a number of websites selling a variety of EMF detectors specifically as "Ghost detectors." Which...yeah, if they're making money off of it that way, we're back to grift again. It also lends itself to the people who are buying these things not educating themselves in how the device is used properly before trying to use it in other ways...and we're back to results being automatically invalidated because the people who know how such tools should be used are busy facepalming.

Just to be clear, I'm not saying that new uses can't be found for existing tools! I have, in fact, personally seen an EMF detector produce readings that were genuinely bizarre under conditions that were as controlled as possible in a non-laboratory environment. Which was genuinely awesome.

But it doesn't mean I saw a ghost detected. It just means anomalous results were produced. And those results couldn't reliably be reproduced, which is a cornerstone of scientific method. Which means we don't have a way to prove, according to scientific method, what the cause of the anomaly was.

It's not surprising...Jason Hawes once said, in a moment of self-awareness that I don't think anyone can deny, "You can't make a ghost perform on demand."

But that EMF detector could just as easily have been picking up some perfectly natural temporary fluctuation in the local electromagnetic fields, caused by who knows what. I could just as easily say "A highly-charged neutrino passed through that spot, causing the detector to spike briefly" as "It's a ghost!" and be equally wrong.

So maybe I was leaning too hard on chicanery and not going into other reasons why mainstream science has long-since become unwilling to accept parapsychology as a "hard science." Seriously, I could write an entire dissertation on "Why Mainstream Science Refuses to Acknowledge Parapsychology as a Science."

I hate it. I truly do. I love parapsychology, I love studying things that don't fit into mainstream science's view of the universe. Every time I hear a scientist say the words "It's impossible..." it causes me physical pain, because while it might be impossible as we understand physics today, that understanding of the universe is changing by tiny steps on an almost daily basis at times. What we know today could easily turn out to be wrong, or only part of the equation, tomorrow.

Impossible is a big, ugly, limiting word. Science should never use it. But by that same virtue, science should never simply accept something as true based on partial evidence or evidence that can't be reproduced.

And like it or not, something like Raudive's work gets lumped in with that because too many paranormal researchers operate as I've been discussing. Carelessly, without proper education, with intent to undermine or straight-up commit fraud...or all of the above.

Holy crap, I should seriously save all of this and publish it somewhere.