I decided to start this post due to me starting to discuss about the above topic in this post on boards.ie.  Given that it was going to be off-topic if I went any further in the post, I decided that this subject deserved its own post on my blog.  Why on my blog?  Well, I am due for an update for starters and secondly, I get the feeling that it may be better off here because at least I know I won’t need to worry about how many characters or words in the thread I created.  The thread in question is located here if you’re reading this directly from the blog; gotta do some linkbacks after all as there’s going to be two sets of comments to read through I’m sure.  Anyway, as I stated in the boards.ie post, I would never charge for my services and nor would the majority of paranormal teams, though a few individuals and/or teams might do.  And while I wouldn’t necessarily charge for my services, I don’t think it’s unfair if the person/organisation who called out the investigator assisted with the travel costs of those who are attending.  I was a little unsure of this at first, but a discussion with Steve Parsons at the ParaCon on Saturday made me feel a little easier about stating this.  As for charging a rather large amount for performing an investigation of a private or commercial location, I do feel that it’s rather unethical to charge lots of money for the service.

Like I said before, travelling to somewhere does cost money and there’s nothing wrong with asking for reimbursement of travel costs; the percentage of which I’d leave to the team and the client to decide seeing as each case is different.  Anyway, while the previously stated method is fair, it’s when investigators start to charge what I’d consider large amounts of money for a service.  In a field that’s still in its relative infancy, I fail to see how a large callout fee can be justified for an investigation that may or may not bring results, and possibly do more harm than good.  At present, there’s no way of telling if a paranormal organisation is legit or not, which brings its own set of dangers.  Any Tom, Dick and Harry can setup what they call a paranormal investigation group and claim to be able to get rid of ghosts.

I’m sure a good few people (from boards.ie) will recognise some of what I’m saying now as being paraphrased from Ciaran O’Keeffe’s and Steve’s talk, which is a huge driving force behind what I’m saying. I do feel like talking about this more, both with people who saw the talk and also those that haven’t, especially as the topic of paying for investigations was brought up in the thread where my response was posted.  Anyway, back to my initial point… because anyone can go around claiming they’re a paranormal investigator (I’m not saying everyone who says they are is a charlatan) and that there’s no regulating body for this sort of thing as of yet, people who don’t know any better have the potential to be conned by unethical individuals which is not right.  Even worse is the issue that they charge for their services and can actually do nothing.

You also have psychics claiming to be able to do similar things and again, they mightn’t be able to do anything about it, though they still charge.  There are some really gifted psychics out there, don’t get me wrong, but you do also have those in it just to make money as well, just as these alleged paranormal investigators are.  Unfortunately, there’s no way at present to tell who is and isn’t legit, so these individuals can charge people and they will be none the wiser.  I haven’t actually heard about anyone charging for a private investigation as of yet, though I have heard of a horror storie or two via Ciaran’s and Steve’s talks and I was horrified as to what I’ve heard.  I won’t go into it just now, because I can’t remember the full details and I also want to get to the other side of the spectrum regarding paranormal investigations, that being the public investigations.  This brings a similar set of questions to private investigations.  Firstly, you have individuals (such as myself) and organisations such as Bumpz In The Night, Leinster Paranormal, the PIGs, PRAI and other organisations that have been established over the past 5 years or so.  When I was starting off with the PRAI back in May 2004, I think we were one of a few, if not the only Southern Ireland-based organisation out there at the time.

Even when I started to do investigations at Charleville, or collaborating as a consultant of sorts with some of the newly established groups at that time there was still only a handful of groups.  I have noticed now that the paranormal scene in Ireland has exploded with all the new groups.  While I’m not saying if it’s a good or a bad thing, I do feel that it’s starting become a little bit saturated over there in that there’s a lot of groups compared to what there was even 4-5 years prior.  Anyway, as well as paranormal groups, you also have these companies doing investigations now as well.  To me, paranormal groups and companies are at the opposite end of the scale when it comes to public investigations.  Groups are usually not for profit entities and generally charge what is considered to be a reasonable amount for investigations, which is dictated by the location they’re negotiated with.  Depending on things, the price is either determined on a per person rate, in the case of a few locations, although more commonly, it’s just one bulk sum for renting out the whole place.

The average price generally seems to be about 50 Euros in Ireland, whereas in the UK it seems to vary from anything from 25 Sterling to about 60, depending on the location.  In the cases where one lump sum is charged for the rental of the place, the charge is generally determined by the minimum recommended amount of people that need to go.  If the organising group manages to exceed that, they should be able to charge a little less per person as a result; everyone wins here: the location gets their requested rental fee and people get some money back and the group gets an investigation.  And as we all know, people love getting money back.  Essentially, in this method, everything is done at what would be considered “cost price” for the group and would therefore be considered ethical.  As I mentioned in the post at the very start of this blog post, I mentioned that I wouldn’t be too adverse for charging maybe an extra 5 or 10 Euros/Pounds to help with unexpected costs that may happen along the way.  It’s not like you’re charging a huge amount extra so it still should be reasonably fair.  I’m not going to go into too much detail over what the costs could be for, but provided they’re in relation to the public aspect of things it shouldn’t be too much of an issue, right?

If you are going to charge a few extra quid on top of the investigation cost though, be sure to tell people that you’re going to do this and it’s also to help improve things for future investigations or at least help cover operating costs, such as Paypal costs if you accept online payments (as the seller has to pay charges, if I recall).  The thing about public investigations as well though is that it’s more of a tangable thing; although not many breakthroughs occur on these, I’ve noticed.  However, it’s events like these that give people a chance to experience paranormal investigations with a team that (hopefully) knows what they’re doing.

It would be recommended (at least by me) that if a group or individual wishes to organise a public investigation, they at least have some experience under their belt beforehand.  The reason I say this is because you’re going to be dealing with a variety of people, all of them clearly interested in the paranormal but also at differing levels of experience.  Some are totally new the the field, whereas others may be experienced.  Either way, it’s the organiser’s job to keep everything in order and it’s not easy at all.  Ideally though, it’s best done with a group of 2-3 people organising as these individuals will be the team leaders, as they have the most experience.  Now I could go into all sorts of things about organising investigations, but this isn’t the time or the place for talking about it at present as I want to focus on the ethics of paranormal groups relating to charging and a little about the paranormal scene within Ireland and the UK because it’s required.  I’ll start to cover it at a later date when I set up my paranormal journal.

Anyway, now that we have established a little about how groups generally tend to work, we’ll talk about the companies that offer “ghost hunts”, “paranormal investigations” and the like.  I tried to locate some companies that charge more than the above amounts, but I have come up a little empty on that front.  However, I do know that they exist.  The ones I did find seem to charge between 45-89 Pounds each and although some of the prices fall within what a group would charge, at the same time I do have to wonder how many people they’re bringing with them and how much the location is being rented for.  I actually found a nice example which shows how much was being charged for an investigation; 40 Euros may seem reasonably priced and perhaps even better value than a group offers, but you can see that there’s a max of 40 people that are catered for.  That’s 1600 Euros in total!  Granted, some of that money goes to the location, but that’s still at least say 700-800 for the company doing it.  Not a bad way to make a few quid, but you can tell they’re in it for the money.  I wouldn’t really consider it a proper investiation anyway… 40 is far too much to have a proper investigation.  Standard investigations generally tend to have no more than 15 people attending, which means there’s more time for a proper investigation.  Granted, it may be a little more expensive, but at least you know those doing it aren’t in it for the money and don’t see you as a customer.

Those sort of things are more entertainment, though that said, even public investigations are to an extent.  I don’t necessarily consider these paranormal tours to be unethical per se, but it’s more an issue of differences with the two models, hence why I said they’re at two different ends of the spectrum.  I do think though that the commercial enterprises somewhat water down the experience of a paranormal investigation.  Even the ones organised by groups are a little watered down, but because there’s a smaller group of people involved it isn’t as crowded and is a little more intimate.  One thing that does annoy me about certain investigations is when there’s too many people in the one place investigating, due to the fact that people need to be spaced out reasonably so each group disrupts the other as little as possible.  That may be perhaps what annoys me about the commercial ventures as well, but that’s for another post.  A couple of funny things though would be that I’ve never been on one of these commercial investigations and also if I were asked to appear on one I wouldn’t be hugely opposed to it.

I wouldn’t mind appearing on something like Ghost Hunters or Most Haunted either, just to say that I have done so and also see how they actually work.  Perhaps that is coming a little close to me selling my soul to the devil, as I don’t think these paranormal shows do a lot for the paranormal investigation field and encourage bad practices from people who are none the wises…  but hell, I’d get to be on TV!  Anyway, just because I agreed to appear on a show doesn’t mean I’d necessarily have to agree with it later.  I have been in the paper before as it goes, although that’s a bit of a sore topic so I’ll steer clear from that.  I’ve also been on the radio, though it was my first time on it so I was most likely a bit crap.  Interestingly enough, I was contacted about appearing on Ghost Hunters International, although nothing happened with regards to it.

These things happen though.  As for what I’m doing talking about in the media, I suppose there’s a fine ethical line about appearing in it, especially given MH these days hasn’t got such a good reputation.  Unfortunately, if you want to be a more well known, it would require you to appear on one of the shows.  Like I said though, you don’t have to agree with what they’re doing.  Steve Parsons (I mention him a lot, don’t I?) said to me that he heard (or was with?) a group that watched Most Haunted back to back and considered that training for paranormal investigation.  considering the stuff I’ve heard about MH from the UK paranormal community, as well as the owners of some of the places (that have been on MH) I’ve investigated with other groups.  I stopped watching it because I haven’t access to Livng TV over here at present, although I’ve gone off it based upon the stuff I’ve heard about it, so I’m less than impressed with them and even other programs like MH will get similarly scrutinised until I have proof that states otherwise.  I suppose though, you can hear all this stuff about something, but until you experience it for yourself, you can’t really fully appriciate it.

I’m going to wrap it up now as I’ve veered off a bit from my main points.  Anyway, after mulling things over a bit, I’ve noticed that the field of paranormal investigation is being exploited on various levels, be it for entertainment or profit, be it ethically or non-ethically.  Thankfully though, this is only a relative minority as most out there in this field tend to provide ethical (free or just asking for their travel costs to be covered)  private investigations and non-commercially driven public investigations.  Whatever people think about making money from paranormal events, be they right or wrong, they’re still less wrong than those who unethically charge for private investigations; at least you know what to expect from the companies for the most part, so you know where you stand with them.  With the rogue investigators, there’s at present no real way of knowing where you stand.  In my opinion, a paranormal investigatior regulation organisation/paranormal ethics society would go a long way to making sure that people are not fleeced by these con artists, who in some cases do more harm than good.

Edit: After doing some further research, it seems that any reputable paranormal group in the UK needs to now have liability insurance, both to help secure investigations and also to protect against being sued, etc. This would be one of the costs included in the above, seeing as per year it costs anything from £133 upwards, and that £133 is for a 4 man team. Including more than 7 people I found was about £268 with a £250 excess. I’m not sure if groups actually take the cost themselves, pass it on to those participating in an open/public investigations or it’s a combination of the above. Either way, under the tenner extra model, the yearly cost plus excess would be sorted after 3 investigations, with the premium sorted after 2. This then puts pressure on investigators to make sure they hold at least 2-3 investigations a year in order to cover the insurance costs involved in holding investigations. Some locations won’t touch you now unless you have liability insurance as it seems that waivers don’t cut it any more. They might still do within Ireland, but one of the companies providing cover states that they also cover “Eire” means that eventually, locations in Ireland will be demanding similar requirements for investigators.

The question now is that should the paranormal team hosting the event take on the full cost, or should they charge an extra amount of money per person on top of what the location charges? Well, for someone like me who can’t really afford to take on the extra costs of insurance, I would just pass on the cover charge to each person, as the way I figure it, paying the cost of the insurance means that they can be formally covered. On a side-note, I know of one group having up to £5 million in liability insurance, to ensure that locations will take them on. I certainly will be looking at liability insurance for future investigations when I start getting my group established, which should be in the New Year as I’ve no plans to conduct investigations this year. There was also a monthly option as well, which is by no means a bad thing, but frankly I’d rather that I paid off the lump sum for the policy and was covered, although I’d continue charging the same price year-round in the interests of fairness to those going and also the cover the £250 excess. Perhaps when all these considerations are out of the way, anything extra will go back into the group to help with costs sustained by the group. Most paranormal groups are non-profit entities and wouldn’t dare to use it to make money, as it goes back to the entire ethics argument. However, I don’t think anyone would begrudge an ethical group using any money left over after charging for insurance to help improve the group although more than likely, the insurance and excess will consume the majority of fees.

Either way, as far as open investigations within the UK go, I think being able to charge only what the location costs is starting to come to an end. I estimate that by 2012, if not sooner, the majority of locations in the UK will require that a group or individual has liability insurance before the negotiations can even begin. While in Ireland, the paranormal scene is only starting to take off, although you’ll see a similar trend eventually. However, I think it’ll be some time before Irish insurers start to offer a similar insurance package that the UK insurers offer and at present, there’s only two. One of which requires membership of a group, and this is where I got the 267 quote from. As for the two companies offering it, one is the Blackfriars Group and ther other is provided by Westminster Indemnity Ltd, provided you’re a member of the UK British Paranormal Association (I’d have thought that UK Paranormal Association was enough, but apparantly not). Anyway, as you can see, there’s not a lot to choose from at present, although over the next couple of years, expect to see a few more insurers start to offer policies. Also, from what I read regarding the BG policy, it doesn’t seem to cover everything. Still, I suppose better most things than nothing at all.

As for why more insurers don’t offer policies for paranormal groups, it’s down to some of the things that could happen. I won’t go into detail here, but this link provides some good reasons why, so if you’re genuinely curious about it, I would read it. I’m pretty sure I’ve said this, but it’s worth mentioning again anyway: reputable paranormal investigators have liability insurance!

Perhaps I’m going on about this a little too much, but now that I’ve seen that around here, a lot of paranormal groups have insurance, I’m going to have to rethink a few things now. While waivers might work for Irish groups, it’s only a matter of time before insurance is needed, if it isn’t already needed for some places. The way I figure it, over the next year or so the average price of an investigation will go from €50-€60 (£40-£50) to €60-€70 (£50-£60). Granted, thse prices may not be average, at least in the case of Pounds, but it does show how things will eventually cost more, even for “non-profit” organisations. One good thing you can say about the commercial crowd is that they already have their insurance sorted out, so this isn’t an issue for them. Either way, the lack of liability insurance is going to close off doors to venues to investigate for groups, as only a handful will accept uninsured groups. Thus, it’s getting to be an issue as to the ethics of insurance for investigations; is it fair to charge each person to pay for a portion of insurance (5-10 per head) or should the group take on the cost themselves? Better yet, should a group not have insurance at all, at the risk of losing reputation and credibility?

It’s a contentious issue, especially when you consider that the group and its members, members of the public and the location all need to be protected somehow. And while waivers might work to a degree, having to keep waivers is going to cause a lot of hassle, and the paperwork is an additional burden on groups. Getting insured is a much cleaner alternative, as there’s no more worries about signing waivers, meaning that’s one less form to sign. Something tells me, that for my group at least, I need to rethink the internal structure of things. I won’t discuss it here because I neither know what I need to do, plus it’s beyond the scope of this post. This talk about insurance is a massive article in itself, so I’ll need to update the post on boards.ie and reference the changes, as well as open up an additional conversational avenue on insurance for groups.

Anyway, I won’t be updating this any further now, so any additional conversations will be held on the boards.ie thread or in the comments section. Expect to see a copy of this in my paranormal blog in the near future as well.