Why Do Some Paranormal Investigations Fail?

All hauntings follow a cyclic pattern.

One of the biggest misconceptions that new investigators have is that a house is haunted; it’s haunted twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week.  They can walk in at any time and witness paranormal activity.  For years, I have heard members of the paranormal community say, “If a house is haunted, you should witness paranormal activity both day and night.”  From my experience, this is absolutely wrong.

Before I accept an investigation of a private residence, I ask the homeowner to keep a journal.  The homeowner is the primary source of information.  Every time they witness something, I want the date and time recorded.  Who was present at the time the phenomenon happened.  Everything they witnessed.  What they were doing before it happened.  Also, anything they felt before, during, and after the event.  I want the journal kept for as long as they feel safe staying in the house.

What I am looking for is patterns.  In my experience, hauntings tend to follow cyclic patterns.  There are times when the house is extremely active and times when nothing is happening.  In houses considered extremely haunted, these cyclic patterns repeat very quickly.  Also, there is always the possibility that several cyclic patterns are occurring simultaneously.   In extremely haunted locations like the Lemp Mansion, the haunting follows a very quick, cyclical pattern, with several patterns occurring.  When several patterns are playing out, I consider this a location with multiple hauntings.  

In some haunted locations, these cyclic patterns, over time, lose momentum and slowly fade away, as if the haunting has lost its attachment.   For a spirit to remain in our realm, it must form an attachment to something.  In the case of a haunted house, the spirit formed an attachment to a specific location.  Attachments require energy, and as the spirit’s energy dissipates, the attachment becomes weaker until it breaks.  In some cases, the spirit may decide on its own to cross over.

So does activity manifest twenty-four-seven?  No.  It takes energy for a spirit to manifest activity.  Sometimes it takes time for the haunting to recharge, and sometimes these recharging cycles follow a very specific pattern that an investigator can map out and use to focus their investigation and achieve better results.