"Paranormal Survivors" Are You One?

There is a Travel Channel TV program called "Paranormal Survivors" out of Ontario, Canada that ran from 2015 to 2019 with reruns in syndication on broadcast TV. I never watched it on Travel and have only recently been watching it on Sunday evenings on ThisTV. I've been watching it here and there for a couple of months now and it seems that the only type of paranormal activity they cover is haunting and possessions. Also, these encounters are always involving evil spirits and demons with almost no benevolent spirits that warn or protect. So I thought I'd share some observations about these encounters.

The show format is they find people with ghost stories and interview them on camera, then they find similar-looking actors to dramatically exaggerate the stories from the survivor's testimonials. When I consider how many of these survivors become emotional in their interviews, I conclude most are being truthful in their storytelling. The show also has its consultants who are professional paranormal investigators who explain the encounters as they understand them.

Most of these stories involve people who have moved into a new home, often an old Victorian home. Soon after, within the first month of living in the home, unexplainable things begin to occur that seem paranormal, but the homeowners usually rationalize it and blow it off.

Almost all of these hauntings start with a feeling of being watched when no one else is around. Then strange things like cold spots or cold rooms, things out of place, and sounds that can't be explained begin to happen. After these things occur with some regularity, they will hear footsteps and doors opening and closing, usually at night around 2am - 3am in the early mornings. This then escalates until these evil spirits and demons begin to manifest as orbs, shadows and shades, or even fully manifested, full-bodied entities.

This is usually about the time the survivors begin to realize something very wrong is happening and suspect the paranormal. They then try to live with the activity until it becomes a threat in the form of violent poltergeist activity after which they seek unconventional help in the form of a paranormal investigator or less often a priest or other Christian-style exorcist type. At this point, the investigator confirms the survivor's suspicions and uses a (Pagan) sage burning ceremony or some kind of Christian exorcism to "cast out" the spirit or lead it into the light.

Most, but not all the ceremonies work and a small percentage of spirits cannot be cast out or they return and the owners give up and leave the haunted dwelling.

Based on these stories and the consistency of the details, it makes it seem like evil spirits and demons exist and can be a threat to regular people who would otherwise never believe in the paranormal.

I have had many paranormal experiences, most of which ended in my 20s. Nowadays I don't have much fear of ghosts and live in a very peaceful home and area where nothing much happens. Still, once and a while something paranormal will happen to me. I really don't care too much if these things are real or not, it won't be all that long from now when I solve the great mystery and go do some haunting of my own - BOOOO! Ha Ha Ha Ha Haaaaaaa!

Here is something else I was thinking about these stories. Maybe the reason so very few of these stories have benevolent spirit encounters is that the people who have these types of encounters rarely submit them to the show or the show rejects them in favor of the scary stories. It may also be that spirits with good intentions won't intentionally reveal their presence while they try to protect the living from the other evil spirits.

a reply to: TheMichiganSwampBuck

I was going to respond but the hell with it as I will write my own thread as based on whom I spoke with over the weekend many natives who were born in South Carolina believe in the paranormal as much suffering and death has taken place in this state going on well before the Revolutionary war.

We were in an antique store in a town called Ninty Six, South Carolina outside of Greenwood this weekend. One of the owners and I began to speak and he mentined that his family fought the British and Yankees in both wars. I then mentioned something about weird ongongs in our current house and then they opened up and showed my wife and I several pictures of their daughters with weird cloudy apparations on the digital camera picture. Aka ghosts.

This coincides with other native born Southernors stories as told to us and others whom we have met as all are convinced that paranormal exists, is real and yes there is more to this story. I have also been in touch with the South carolina Office of Paranormal Investigations.

They are quite grounded and pragmatic people. Until you experience you may never believe.

IMO since our move here in 2017 the paranormal isnt some fake spook #. Its real. We also had an Exorcist over to bless our 1994 built home in 2021. Thats 1994 as whatever happend on this tract of land just doesnt mess with our home but the entire neighborhood.

In brief they, aka the spooks love electrical and electronic stuff. They also like to blow it up or fry it.

As a result I have since returned to the church and I beliveve in Jesus Christ and God. I dont wear religion on my sleeve but was told that I have been under spiritual attack for several decades aka Sleep Paralysis. Last episode was January 30, 2022. How did it stop? I began to pray to the rosary.

Just pray.

"Paranormal Survivors" Are You One"

Yeah. From 3 years ago.
Had a six month infestation. It was hell. Literally.
Local parish priest tried but couldn't get rid of it.
Had to go to diocese level priest that specialized in it.
Changed my life.
I won't even watch a spooky TV commercial anymore
let alone indulge in anything occult or spooky. NOPE!!

I believe in, and have investigated the paranormal for years. But shows like Paranormal Survivors, My Ghost Story, Ghosts Caught on Camera and others are garbage. Basically clickbait as a TV show, they are just dramatized and exaggerated stories, likely many are just made up. They push the demon/evil entity angle because people like to be scared, Ghost Adventures rarely encounter a benign entity, it's always something evil because they know their viewers lap that $h17 up.

I much prefer shows investigating activity (and yes , I know many are fake) over these lame dramatic re enactments

a reply to: Waterglass

I would urge caution when interacting with this phenomenon. I've also noticed that these exorcisms are intense and as I said, they didn't always work. Plus the information given by these consulting investigators throwing in their two cents is sometimes conflicting. It seems that ignoring this often makes it worse, fearing it also makes it worse. You suggested that Christian prayer was the only way to go. On the other hand, you better believe and be led by the spirit of the Lord or it could make things much worse, even deadly IMO. I do agree though, prayer is best.

originally posted by: vlawde
I believe in, and have investigated the paranormal for years. But shows like Paranormal Survivors, My Ghost Story, Ghosts Caught on Camera and others are garbage. Basically clickbait as a TV show, they are just dramatized and exaggerated stories, likely many are just made up. They push the demon/evil entity angle because people like to be scared, Ghost Adventures rarely encounter a benign entity, it's always something evil because they know their viewers lap that $h17 up.

I much prefer shows investigating activity (and yes , I know many are fake) over these lame dramatic re enactments

That's exactly how I felt until I began to closely examine these episodes. The stories have characteristics that are too similar and of course, that may be due to fake stories and the format of the production itself. However, I find many of the actual interviews and the emotions expressed by the survivors to be genuine and I find that fairly convincing.

ETA: From your experience in this field, would you say that the outline I gave with the stages I described is inaccurate, or are typical of a haunting?

a reply to: TheMichiganSwampBuck

IMO those stories are formatted in a certain way, a lot of what you mentioned (moving into a Victorian etc) are common tropes. Not saying that never happens, but these scenarios are familiar to the viewer and are easier for them to believe.

But yeah, it does often go in the way you described. What I did find is often when we went to assess cases, we'd find the clients were repeating what they had seen on ghost hunting shows and just wanted the thrill of of having their house investigated. There were some legit hauntings with apparitions, EVP's and a few other things.

a reply to: vlawde

Thanks, just wondering if those signs, in that order (more-or-less) are what you need to look for in a real haunting.

Also, repeating things they heard on ghost-hunting programs would explain the near exact progression of those reported hauntings.

a reply to: TheMichiganSwampBuck

I’ve lived in a haunted house and wouldn’t wish it on anyone.
I found out at a later date that the house (yes it was an old Victorian!! Ha)
That the house used to be the neighborhood doctor and he would see patients in what was now a kitchen. That is
Exactly where the “activity” occurred.

My cats would hiss, yell and puff up at the ceiling on a regular basis. The sounds coming from that house, Lord have mercy..
Very scary.

I've had ..

NDE - Or it was a dead experience and got tossed back .

Poltergeist my fault it was not happy .

Experienced Witcraft -Just the other day I thought of my Daughter I had not spoken to since July and she called me within 30 min "She practices her mother was one so she may be natural "

Was part of a paranormal research group that went on ton's of projects .

One of my hobbies was to go at night and take pictures of Old graveyards nothing crazy but Orbs and sometimes you could question if there was a face in some .

I also have a 40 year old Tarot deck that has not been put back in it's box in 30 years and has moved to many new houses "Loose" and never a card has gone missing .

Suffered sleep paralysis all my life until I learned to beat it now it leaves me alone for the most part does try here and there but now I know how to fight back or it happened so much it just happen I learned to break free and.
chase it it's always invisible never can find it but it runs .


Shadow people also ------ My Wife got the honor to see one with Red Eyes when we 1st got together , I've only seen the dark ones no eye's .

Things do go bump in the night .....

Surviving it is 100% different than just experiencing it.

Know this thread is about hauntings & Beings that attach themselves to people but there are other paranormal things.
Even if you already took Para stuff as a given (it happens to other people but you've never had any incidents)
PTSD can still happen just depends on how ugly things went.

Made it thru some insanely terrifying stuff, but a lot of occurences were just, what the heck was that about?
I always saw those type as nuisance's. Somethings there, no clue what,then off it goes. Absolutely pointless! I never got into ghost stuff because "How anal do you have to be to have died yet your still here grinding that ax?"
Playing with annoying compulsive ghosts who in real life were probably annoying compulsive people sounds too much like
"psychiatrist to the departed".
JMO cause I know for lots of people it's their jam.

Went there, saw that, and picked up a souvenir.

In all fairness the title of this thread is " 'Paranormal Survivors' Are You One?" and it asks the readers the question if they have survived a paranormal experience. To answer that question a simple yes will do along with a why perhaps, however, I'm happy to hear more about the details of personal experiences as posts. Still, the thread is also about the TV series "Paranormal Survivors" which deals with evil spirits and demon possession. The direction I was hoping this thread would go in is comparing the stories in the series with our member's personal experiences and maybe at some point, some conclusions could be made about the subject.

I only gave a general outline of that program and what I found to be the commonalities of the stories they had on it. I put these shared aspects in a list of stages in chronological order as occurred in the stories to use as a comparison with the members' stories. There were a lot of details I left out, like being touched, grabbed, or pushed by unseen hands or some of the things these spirits told the victims. I didn't go too much into what claims these investigators (or shamans) were making or what the consultants had to say either. There is a crap load of stories on that show, I think they have three stories per episode and it lasted for four seasons. It did run the gambit of ghost stories and gave categories of haunting types along with information about spirits and demons.

It is probably wise to make the distinction between a haunted house, place, or object and a spirit attachment in which a spirit is basically haunting a person. Then there are what may be considered visiting spirits that pop in for a bit, spirits like a passed relative or even something evil that shows up one time then leaves to never return. Let's not forget the ever-popular "portal" that opens up and allows any kind of spirit to pour in from elsewhere. Then you have lay lines, space/time warps along with intersecting realities if you want to go into that stuff as well.

The show format is they find people with ghost stories and interview them on camera, then they find similar-looking actors to dramatically exaggerate the stories from the survivor's testimonials. When I consider how many of these survivors become emotional in their interviews, I conclude most are being truthful in their storytelling. The show also has its consultants who are professional paranormal investigators who explain the encounters as they understand them.

A lot of paranormal things happen because of quite mundane reasons.

A nightgown might float to the cieling scaring the heck of of someone. She screams and the rest of the family leave the loungers to find out what us going on. They retire to the kitchen for a culpa tea. Then the old heavy ceiling crashes down in the lounge room. (It happened when I was a kid)

Someone kindly warning the residents.

People are woken up at 3AM with noises, cupboard doors opening and the rest. Some dead kid playing tricks on the adults who can't see them.

Someone having fun.

A lot of it is harmless. But people like to make more of it. Like the dramatic actors for the TV show.

a reply to: NobodySpecial268
Nice story with the nightgown saving people from danger. That might be considered an other-world intervention, certainly not an incidence of haunting.

There are omens as well, like the hand of death that occurred on both sides of my family, even I saw it just before my great uncle was murdered by his friend who shared a place with him. It appeared on my mother's side as a disembodied hand that waved over the head of a sleeping relative who died the next day when a mule kicked him. On my father's side, it was a bloody hand that floated over my uncle's face while in bed a few days before another relative died. For me, it was a black hand waving at me from outside the window when I was visiting my grandmother who was my great uncle's sister.

a reply to: TheMichiganSwampBuck

That hand is a scary one. Certainly an omen.

Did you ever work out what it was about?

------------

ETA: I don't mean to intrude, but was there a priest in your family background who wears a wide brim hat and church clothes. The clothes are black.

I wondered what the hand was about and then 'saw' a "father" type of the church with a open book in one hand and the other hand waving about like he is giving sacraments.

originally posted by: NobodySpecial268
a reply to: TheMichiganSwampBuck

That hand is a scary one. Certainly an omen.

Did you ever work out what it was about?

Well, there is a lot of German heritage on both sides of the family and each of the family members involved was closely related, mother-son, nephew-uncle in all three instances. Perhaps it is a spirit trying to get someone's attention by waving a hand except with the bloody hand that remained stationary, of course, a bloody hand or a black hand might be indicative of death.

ETA: "I wondered what the hand was about and then 'saw' a "father" type of the church with a open book in one hand and the other hand waving about like he is giving sacraments." - Interesting association like making the sign of the cross.

a reply to: TheMichiganSwampBuck

I added a bit to my post above as you were posting.