BENGALURU : Figures, footsteps and a feeling of being watched. Do these fears have any rationale to them? The Indian Paranormal Society (IPS), are a group of corporate employees who claim to be ghost hunters, promise to bust them. The organisation deals with all forms of anomalous phenomena. From Bengaluru, the team gets three to four cases on a daily basis.The organisation, headquartered in New Delhi, with a branch in Bengaluru, promise to have helped several 'thousands to get rid of their fear of the unknown'. And now, the Karnataka wing of the Indian Paranormal Society has called for potential paranormal investigators to join the mystical yet skeptical world of paranormal investigation.
Suman S, a financial analyst has just interviewed with the IPS for want of escaping the humdrum of daily life. "The routine has gotten to me. Here, I’m looking at going beyond the convention trance,” says Suman, whose interest stemmed from posts of IPS’ Facebook page which offered a 'scientific explanation for the paranormal activities.'
On the other hand, Reemus Norhona, a humanities student applied for the job owing to his interest towards the metaphysical and the supernatural. "Metaphysical phenomena have always fascinated me. I got into this after I could feel the change in energies after an ouija board (the board that is said to be used to contact the supernatural) event. This got to me and fascinated me at the same time. That is when I found out about the Indian Paranormal Society through a friend. I immediately felt like I should apply because their research and knowledge in this topic could help me."
500 queue up for token amount
The work entails candidates to go through free 'on-ground training' which involves observing and taking part in investigations, in addition to understanding metaphysics and parapsychology.
Dr Rahul Kumar, dentist and senior paranormal investigator, who heads Karnataka's investigation wing, says that so far they have received 500 applications. The candidates, he adds, are informed that their income solely depends on the remuneration by clients.
"The investigators visiting the case spend from their pockets and if the client is satisfied that the problem is solved, they a token amount, that we use for travelling expenses,” says Rahul, clarifying that this is not a full-time job as it is in western countries, where paranormal investigators are paid for the work they are doing.
The first criterion for interested candidates is having to be above 18 years of age. "We go through an interview process where we ask candidates about their reasons and aim to join the organisation after which we shortlist them. Upon selection they go through training and courses and are then certified as Paranormal investigator (PI). They are taken with us for the investigations where they observe how the procedures work and how the devices are used, ” he says.
Rahul defines the ‘scientific’ job of encountering the spiritual realm as one that removes the supernatural biases that circles the profession. He distances the profession from the myths and the superstitions rooted in society. He says, "All of us have a set of energies or vibrations surrounding us. Each person has their own set of vibrations." He claims that these 'energies or vibrations' don't go away unless is physically removed by an external force and that the Indian Paranormal Society can help in this case through ‘exorcism’, he says.
Ghost hunting takeaways
Tejas Rao, student, psychic and healer of the team, still remembers the experience they had in an open cemetery near Whitefield. He recalls, "We got a clear response to all our communications there. Our devices captured the communication we received from the spirits. We asked the entities simple questions like its age, gender and the cause of death, and we immediately got responses. Towards the end we felt an entity pass through our circle."
Waqar Raj, operational and technical head of IPS, says that at present they have almost 30 to 40 investigators working all over the country. Archana Raghavendra, founder of Enablers, an NGO dealing with animal rescue and adoption joined the organisation to “explore the scientific notions of superstitions.” “Here, there have been instances where I have found myself talking to strange beings and experiencing a strange synchronicity during investigation-- like my car not starting after an investigation and a seven-inch footprint appearing in places," she says. Tejas sums it up for those who find it hard to believe in the supernatural, “The experience cannot be defined. It should be experienced first-hand,"
he says.