The Problems Facing The Paranormal Community

I was reading a Facebook post on another paranormal page that talked about the problems in our community.  I do admit that our community does have its problems; I also think he took a rather narrow view of the situation.

He started his post discussing the end-fighting in our community, and I have to agree.  The St. Louis paranormal community is very quarrelsome, with most teams at odds with other teams.  I have witnessed a lot of end-fighting in our local community, and I have been the brunt of some of it, so much so that I often choose to avoid other paranormal teams altogether.

Then he started talking about know-it-alls.  I wrote in a blog post last week that in a community where there are not supposed to be any experts, we tend to have a lot of them.  I also tend to think we need legitimate experts in our community, not self-proclaimed ones.  We need people in the paranormal community who are recognized as knowledgeable and can be turned to when we have questions or need advice.

At the end of his post, he began discussing the negative impact social media influencers have on our community.  I agree with his assessment and, again, have written several blog posts about how the chase for likes and clicks has led some investigators to do some pretty unethical things in the name of fame and monetization.

What I disagree with this author about is his view of the paranormal community as a whole.  His view is that our community is only made up of argumentative know-it-alls and fakers.  There are a lot of solo paranormal investigators and teams doing good work.  Doing what they can to advance our common goal of achieving legitimacy.  Framing our whole community as nothing more than a gaggle of combative know-it-alls and fakers was a little insulting.  

I have always advocated that our community develop universal standards and promote unity, professionalism, and a sense of professional courtesy.  I am not sure how to achieve these goals, but if we can, it would stop the end-fighting and provide a mechanism to penalize those who engage in unethical practices.  If we could achieve this, it would go a long way toward advancing our goal of being accepted as a legitimate field of study.