So, what do you think about "paranormal activity"; ghosts, poltergeists, spirits, hauntings, etc? Especially during this time of the year, it seems that everyone is interested in these things during the Halloween season.

Costumes representing ghouls, goblins, Batman. princesses, knights and vampires fill shelf after shelf of every store. Thousands of foam tombstones, animated witches and ghosts, fake spider webs; fake blood and scars; rubber brains and disembodied eyeballs for all to use in transforming the beautiful fall season into a ghoulish environment.

What is it about people that makes them pretend they want to be scared, but in reality the thought alone scares them? There might be a very small group of people who simply love being scared shitless. Most people, however, take their scare-factor to the level of being silly, and not a step further.


These "Halloween" people like to dress, act and decorate in the Halloween season, but when November 1st rolls around, their turkey utensils come out of the closet while, at the same time donning their red stocking caps and placing their sites on Christmas and it's festivities.

There are some that don't think about the supernatural only during this time of year. These people don't have a desire to be scared, but to understand. They desire to know more about disappearances, strange happenings, hauntings, life-after-death and the sightings of spirits, ghosts and the demonic..They are curious about how the world works, and interested in finding explanations for things that can't be explained. When mankind doesn't understand something, they study it. When information is missing, they find it. When they encounter problems during the study, they work their way through them. Something happens outside our realm of understanding, and to try and figure it out is the next natural step.

Why do I bring this up at this time? Well, the first reason is fairly obvious; it's Halloween and most Americans have turned their attention to this kind of thing. But that's the obvious reason. We have always found it easy to make fun of things we know nothing about. We make light of serial killers, asylums, straitjackets, bodily disfigurement, mental illness and brain-related odd behavior. We laugh at horrible costumes and props, making fun of bleeding, scaring, amputated limbs and disfigurement. But why; these things certainly aren't humorous and, when they occur to people we know, are seen most certainly as sad.

Why don't we let our kids trick-or-treat as paraplegics in wheelchairs, or use crutches, pretending to be polio-victims? How about each child saying "trick-or-treat" as if they had a hair-lip or cleft-pallet? Maybe blindfold them, or fill their ears with cotton balls, and send them off as blind or deaf?

When it's put this way, I hope you can see how ridiculous this is. If we could only see things how they are, and then how they should be, stereotypes would be minimized, and a lot fewer people would be hurt.

The world is not as we see it; the world is the way that it is. Redefining it doesn't make it change. All you can possibly change is appearance; you can't change the meaning.

If ghosts are real, then they are.

If mentally ill people are not serial killers, then they're not.

If handicapped people deserve to be respected, then they do.

If poltergeists move things around your house, then they do.

I don't know about you, but I'm going through life with these assumptions, and acting accordingly.

Better safe than sorry. Right?