Barri Ghai, Ian Lawman, and Jayne Harris
Barri Ghai, Ian Lawman, and Jayne Harris are three extremely well known individuals in the paranormal community who make up the current team for the tv programmes 'Help! My House Is Haunted' and 'Celebrity Help! My House Is Haunted'. I'll be treating this post in a similar way to the one I did about Ed and Lorraine Warren where I discuss their history and backgrounds, but am not overly critical of them. I will be a bit more critical with this team as they don't have huge well known cases like the Warren's, and they are still around and still investigating which means there is more media coverage of them. I do have a couple of critiques from what I've found out, but I will try my best to be fair.
Sources I will be using:
3. IMDB
5. Data Thistle
Barri Ghai
Barri Ghai, according to his website, 'is considered one of the UK's leading paranormal investigators and works with some of the best individuals and psychic mediums in the field'. He has also 'recorded some of the best and most compelling evidence of spirit voices on the popular TV series Help! My House Is Haunted'. Plus, 'he also has a unique ability to hear DVP's (direct voice phenomena) during sessions'. For being able to capture and hear such incredible occurrences of electronic voice phenomena, he is known as 'The EVP King'.
Barri was born on the 10th of February in 1979 and has over twenty years of experience in the paranormal. When he was a child, he experienced some intense activity in his home which 'were horrific and can only be described as demonic attacks'. He claims to have seen at least four seperate entities during his childhood. He begun his research into the paranormal as a teenager by looking into famous hauntings and documented cases. Eventually, this led to him carrying out his own investigations within local cemeteries and famous landmarks. This was all done with the aim of backing up his own experiences and to gather evidence. During his final year at university, Barri says he saw a young female apparition in his bedroom, and he believes this experience is the one which focused his interest further and led to him creating his own investigation group.
Barri founded the Ghostfinder Paranormal Society (G.P.S.) in 2006 with the intention of gathering tangible evidence to help people understand and find answers to the paranormal. I've tried to find out more about this group through the link on Barri's website, but unfortunately all that has been posted there is one blog post and not much more than what Barri's own page states.
Barri also claims that he has encountered something evil at some point in his early life and that it has stuck with him, occasionally making itself known to him and his family, despite almost thirty years having passed. According to his website, he is 'committed to one day proving, through the use of science and technology, that the human consciousness continues to live on after death and ghosts do exist'.
Despite most famously appearing on both 'Help! My House Is Haunted' and 'Celebrity Help! My House Is Haunted', Barri Ghai has also appeared on a fair few other TV programmes:
1. 'Unexplained Caught On Camera'
2. 'Celebrity Haunted Mansion Live'
3. 'Celebrity Haunted Hotel Live'
4. 'My Ghost Story'
5. 'Ghost Adventures'
6. 'Paranormal Investigation: Live'
He has appeared in all four seasons of 'Help! My House Is Haunted' and 'Celebrity Help! My House Is Haunted'. All episodes of these two programmes can be streamed on Discovery Plus. In these programmes he serves as the tech specialist and so is in charge of rigging the location with cameras, along with using technological means of capturing evidence to the paranormal occurring. This makes him an Instrumental Trans-Communication (ITC) practitioner, and he has been interested in Electronic Voice Phenomena (EVP) for over fifteen years. An interesting fact about 'Help!' Is that it was originally created by Zak Bagans who is the host of the US series 'Ghost Adventures'.
Looking through Barri's website, it looks like he has a good blog on there where he posts about his investigations, along with evidence he has captured from these investigations. He also lists various locations where he will be investigating with members of the G.P.S. and lists tickets for you to purchase so that you can investigate with him and his team. The final thing of note on his website is a list of EVP's he has captured. I will discuss these, along with various prices for tickets and his blog at the end of this post with my overall thoughts.
Ian Lawman
Ian Lawman is quite a hard man to research, so there isn't much I can really say about him. He is a psychic medium and works alongside both Barri Ghai and Jayne Harris in the current series of 'Help! My House Is Haunted' and 'Celebrity Help! My House Is Haunted'. He has said that he has been able to talk to the dead since he was four years old and that he first acknowledged his ability when he realised that his imaginary friend was actually a spirit. He is also an ordained exorcist as he was taught by the church. He has been called 'one of the worlds top psychic mediums' and first appeared on TV in 2004. His first appearence was on 'I'm Famous And Frightened' where he hosted the worlds first ever live seance along with the worlds first live ouija board session. He then went on to appear in Most Haunted's third, fourth, and fifth seasons.
Jayne Harris
Jayne Harris is many things, and is arguably more decorated than both Barri Ghai and Ian Lawman from a professional standpoint. She is a paranormal investigator, tv presenter, author, and podcaster from the UK. She has a background in psychology, and has written two books on the supernatural called 'What Dwells Within' and 'Peggy The Doll'. She is also a lecturer who regularly visits universities to give talks and demonstrations, plus tutors two paranormal study courses. She has also been described as 'Britain's number one female paranormal investigator' by VICE magazine. Jayne is 'considered one of the UK's most respected professionals in the field of paranormal research, experimental development, and haunted history'.
Jayne was the former owner of Peggy The Doll, the same doll her book is about, and it is considered to be one of the most haunted objects in the world. Jayne appeared in 'Deadly Possessions' alongside Zak Bagans, and Peggy now lives in Zak's haunted museum. She is best known for co-hosting 'Help! My House Is Haunted' alongside Barri Ghai and Ian Lawman, plus she has appeared on 'Unexplained Caught On Camera'. Her role in 'Help! My House Is Haunted' is to dig up the history on the locations they investigate, and then once the investigation is concluded she performs a cleansing on the property to move on any spirits causing the owners trouble.
She has also hosts the 'By Candlelight' podcast and was involved in the BBC sounds series 'The Battersea Poltergeist' with Danny Robins and parapsychologist Ciaran O'Keefe.
My thoughts:
As I said at the start of this blog, I'm going to be a little bit more critical here than I was in my post about the Warren's. I think, from the information I've written here, that Jayne Harris is definitely the most credible of these three investigators. Her background in psychology would give her an insight to how the mind would accidentally make up paranormal experiences, and this should help her to debunk things in the moment when investigating. Instead of 'did you see that shadow?' She would instead, I would expect, think 'I saw a shadow; but it's dark, it's late, these facts are messing with my eyes, so I probably saw nothing. Let's check the camera to be sure'. Also being the only one of the three (that I could find) to be visiting universities and teaching courses is definitely an impressive attribute towards her legitimacy as a paranormal investigator. The only iffy thing about her is the connection with Zak Bagans, but this is slightly unfair from me as I don't know anything about Zak aside he stars in 'Ghost Adventures' and has his own haunted objects museum. The reason why I've flagged this connection as a slight blip in credibility is because of the investigation team 'Ghosts of Britain' which is a team I will definitely discuss in a seperate post. I remember watching one of their live streams a while back and people were complaining in the comments about nothing happening, and they remarked back to these comments by saying something along the lines of 'sorry, but we don't fake stuff here. If you want to watch stuff constantly happen and be faked, then go watch Ghost Adventures'.
Now, I am paraphrasing, and this is something I heard them say a long time ago, perhaps a year or two ago, so I could be completely misremembering what they said. However, I do remember them calling out Ghost Adventures in this way. So, until I look more into that programme and Zak, I'm not writing them off, but am keeping in mind that they may be iffy at best. The fact Zak also created 'Help!' doesn't bode well either, but, I don't want to write anything or anyone off due to a sketchy memory I have of someone saying something a while back. I just thought it was worth a mention. Plus, even if Zak wasn't legitimate, it doesn't mean that Jayne or the doll aren't. Also, a big thing going in Jayne's favour is the fact she's worked with Cairan O'Keefe, who has outed Most Haunted for faking things even though he knew that may very well end his TV career.
I would then say Barri is the next one in the list of most to least credible in this trio. This is due to two reasons: the amount of information available about his history, and the fact he isn't claiming to be a psychic medium. I'm tough on mediums. I will admit that, but just because I'm tough on them doesn't mean I don't think they exist. Any medium who has a connection to TV, or is profiting from it, is a red flag to me. There have been too many fake mediums in the past who seem convincing for me to give any of them the benefit of the doubt, but I am open to them proving me wrong. One particular reason why I'm unsure about Ian is he appeared on Most Haunted for a few seasons. Cairan O'Keefe showed Derek Acorah to be faking things on that programme, and has spoken about how things on there were faked. The fact Ian appeared on a programme claiming to show only real things when they were actually faking some, if not all, things really puts his credibility into question. I'm looking forward to reviewing 'Help! My House Is Haunted' as I will then be able to get a solid idea of if I think Ian is a legitimate psychic medium. I will, however, say it is impressive of him to have hosted the worlds first ever seance and ouija board session. I think the thing that works in Ian's favour is the fact he is an ordained exorcist who was taught by the church. Even if there are problems regarding him being a legitimate medium, he still has that history with the church. Does that mean he won't fake things? No. It just makes it that little more complicated to fairly judge him.
As said earlier, I think Barri is the middle ground in this group. There is plenty of information available about him, even if it is all on his own website. He also seems like a genuine person with a keen interest in the paranormal, and wanting to prove the existence of the paranormal through setting up his own group and through using technology is the right way to go about gaining credibility. Now, the issues I have with him aren't with him, but are with his website, and by extension how he goes about distributing his paranormal evidence. He has EVP's listed on his website, which is brilliant, but that's it. The EVP's aren't that great either. Some of them are good, at the end of the day you shouldn't hear anything where there is no audible sound, but you do. The issue I have is the lack of available video on the website showing them being captured, and the lack of a description telling you the context the EVP was captured in. Some of these EVP's sound like they were spoken through an external app such as 'Necrophonic' which spits out the occasional creepy and distorted sounding word here and there. If this is the case, there is nothing wrong with that... these apps are legitimate ways of trying to communicate with spirits, but I wouldn't class that as an EVP. I just think he should clearly state if the use of these apps occured.
The other evidence Barri has on his website is unfortunately hidden behind a paywall. You can see all the prices in the image above. Now, £2 or £3 a month isn't much at all for access to the blog provided he posts frequently, but that isn't the point. The point is that if a scientist discovers something, they share it with the world. Yes, scientists get paid for their discoveries, and paranormal investigators don't, but there are ways investigators can get paid without having to charge people to see their evidence. Barri does a couple of these too on his website. Not only can you buy merchandise from him, such as hats and shirts, but you can also pay to join him on an investigation. One such event is an investigation of Warmley Clocktower in Bristol which costs £50 per person with an additional £1.25 service charge. This investigation spans from 8.30pm until 1.30am. The website says Barri and members of G.P.S. will attend and that even though those attending will be split into three teams, Barri will spend time investigating with each team. I think £10 an hour for that experience is excellent as it's teaching and encouraging investigation so that others can get their own evidence and share it with the world.
Another thing which damages Barri's credibility just a bit for me is that he hosts birthday parties. From one angle, that is quite a cool and generous (if you can call from £300 for four hours generous) thing for him to offer, but it comes across as a bit jokey and makes him seem more like an attraction than a serious paranormal investigator. He also charges between £200 and £500 to investigate your house or workplace for four hours, and between £250 and £500 if you want him to be a guest speaker for five hours. With all of these avenues of income, and his TV deals, I really think he should make all of his collected evidence public.
That sums up my thoughts on this trio of investigators. I think they are well intentioned, and I think having Jayne as part of the trio definitely boosts their overall credibility, but we will see if my mind is changed when I review 'Help! My House Is Haunted'. At the moment, I doubt they fake anything. It just irritates me when investigators collect evidence and then don't share it unless you pay them, especially as they have other sources of income.
I really hope you enjoyed this blog post. If you have any comments whether that be about the blog, experiences of your own, or even places you would like for me to investigate, then you can comment and follow on here, Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, or Reddit, and you can email thetrueparanormal1@gmail.com for a quick response to any questions.
Comments
Post a Comment