Unexplained Phenomena:Paranormal & Spectral Investigations
Contact us about:
- disturbance assistance - need a haunting resolving, a spirit moving on, or just want to know more about them? PSI can help! We include research in to the building and previous occupants;
- ghost hunts (for "entertainment purposes" only);
- corporate/group paranormal investigations in York (for "entertainment purposes" only);
- psychic development courses;
- PSI and Ghostfinder General talks.
- advice or just someone to talk to about strange happenings be they ghosts, UFOs, big cat sightings or anything else that could class as paranormal or unexplained phenomena.
OUR TEAM
Team Leader: Rachel Lacy
Started doing investigations: November 13, 2001 (Ebor Inn)
Role: Paranormal Historian
Whilst working in the local media, Rachel wandered in to the local Pagan/New Age shop and got talking to the owner, Diana Jarvis. Diana asked her along to a seance, then a full investigation: ten years later they are still the best of friends and still doing investigations.
Rachel's main interest is the history and myths. From the start she has investigated ghost stories, trying to sort out which ones are just stories as she believes that a number of them are, like the original the original fairy stories, cautionary tales.
According to Rachel “Its like the famous Sherlock Holmes quote: 'When you have eliminated all which is impossible, then whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.' All ghost stories are interesting for one reason or another, but the ones that have some history in them - or rather, correct history! - fascinate me. These are the ones that are worth a proper investigation."
Rachel is a member of the Association for the Scientific Study of Anomalous Phenomena.********************************************************************************************
Medium: Claire Odette Rogers
Started doing investigations: 2010
Role: Clairvoyant Medium
Claire is a member of the British Astrological And Psychic Society.
She also organizes Mediumship and Clairvoyant Events around North Yorkshire.
Claire is also for hire for paranormal investigations. She has helped with investigations with a York based ghost investigation team.
Claire was born with her spiritual gift; she saw and communicated with Spirit from a very early age. She is able to practice both Clairsentience and Psychometry as part of her Readings. Her gift allows her to tune into future events as they appear at this moment. The reading is for around now and the next six months unless they state a certain date in the distant future.
************************************************************************************************************************************************************************PSI also work with investigators and mediums from Claire's Spiritual Events Psychic Agency.
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Medium: Diana Jarvis
Started doing investigations: 2001
Role: Clairaudio Medium
Diana has worked in the psychic, spiritual and paranoramal fields for over 20 years. Previous investigations include Chillingham Castle, Mother Shipton's Cave, Pembroke Castle and the Tower of London. Although warm and fluffy on the inside, Diana is renowned for her matter-of-fact style and her desire to get straight to the point.
She was editor of Vision magazine from 2005-07, a full colour mainstream glossy monthly concentrating on all types of spiritual and paranormal subjects. She had her own column, Experiences Explained, where she advised readers on the possible causes of their paranormal experiences and she was a permanent fixture as a medium with the Vision in-house ghost-hunting team, The Visionaries. She has also written numerous articles on everything from Astrology to Zen, both for Vision and a number of other publications.
A confident speaker and lecturer, she has co-hosted the Parafest Awards with Phil Whyman (Most Haunted) and had her own radio show (Vision Quest) with Spiritual Connextions radio. She has also appeared on a number of live television and radio shows. She regularly runs tarot courses for beginners and has informed would-be Wiccans worldwide via her previous website, Warty's World.
She currently works for Psychic Interactive TV, where she is a regular webcam reader on the 'graveyard shift' (pun intended). She is also working alongside a number of ghost investigation teams, particularly in Yorkshire and Lancashire.
Diana is also a psychic consultant, teacher and author. Her first book, Shadows in the Night: Memoirs of a Ghost Hunter, is scheduled to hit the shelves in December 2010. It lifts the lid on what it's really like to have a paranormal encounter and draws from her personal experiences.
********************************************************************************************Investigator: James Littlewood
Started doing investigations: September 6, 2002 (Golden Fleece)
Role: Science Officer
********************************************************************************************Investigator: Druva Sinanan
Started doing investigations: October 29, 2005 (Ye Olde Starre Inn)
Role: AV Technician & Security
********************************************************************************************Investigator: Tegan Harteveld
Started doing investigations: October 31, 2008 (Haunted)
Role: Investigator
The glamorous side of ghost investigations! Tegan started as a guest at Haunted on Hallowe'en in 2008, by the following year she had joined the team.
She's seen some unexplainable phenomena, but still looks for a logic explanation and questions what she has experienced rather than believing immediately it has to be a ghost - a good healthy attitude to have. She is also taking an interest in the history of sites.OUR HISTORY
Back in 2003, after a lifetime interest in ghost stories, and several years of paranormal investigations both sporadically and with organised groups, Rachel Lacy, the woman dubbed "York's very own Ghost Finder General," decided it was time to set up her own group in York, the city she was born and raised in.PSI-Chicks was formed as an umbrella title (being all girlies at the start - Rachel, Diana Jarvis and Carol Harris), with Psychic & Spectral Investigations (PSI) paranormal investigation group being the main arm of it. Whilst Rachel may have uttered the first: "why don't we form our own group? There's plenty to go at in York," it would never have happened without Diana who already had experience of running paranormal events and psychic fairs, and had been working as a medium for a number of years.
PSI is a non-profit making paranormal investigation company that also undertakes disturbance assistance (discretely resolving hauntings in someone's own home or business), which later launched what is believed to be the first ghost festival in the UK in 2004, with a three day celebration of the paranormal - the term meaning beyond the range of normal experience or scientific explanation, although the major emphasis is on ghosts. Several other cities have now followed our lead, notably Edinburgh, London, Oxford and Stratford-upon-Avon.
It was during the run up to the first GhostFest that the Dead Wenches first took to the streets, the seed of the idea that became Ghost Hosts was planted, and Rachel and Diana found out just how much stress they could both cope with! The festival also spawned Necropolis: City of the Dead Walks - Historical Not Hysterical. A rather wordy title, its usually refered to as just Necropolis, which offers bespoke walks of York: the name coming from the Roman burial grounds, several of which ring the city. They're not ghost walks as such, they are more un-ghost walks - celebrating the tradtion of ghost stories, but then explaining the history behind them, or rather, usually the lack of history to back them. There are still a few though that stand up to this scrutiny, made all the more interesting by not being easily dismissed by historical fact.
Having survived that experience, the group changed names to Paranormal & Spectral Investigations to reflect their interests: from the very early days James Littlewood was involved as a Chief Science Officer, with various other people joining for an event, a few months, years or permanently with interests in mediumship, history, science and filming. The group does not just focus on ghosts, or even one side of investigating them, but has also gone in search of Big Cats and UFOs.
A year later Isobel Billington Witchcraft Walks were launched as part of the next festival, but York is a bit thin on the ground with alleged witches - we were far too sensible to be taken in by stories and were remarkably lenient on them! Around that time Harriet Ayre English Civil War Walks were first launched.
In 2005 the festival also saw its first theatrical performance, which brought in a number of re-enactors to recreate (in a reasonably slapstick style) some of the traditional ghost stories of York. Although PSI and Necropolis have focused on investigating the truth behind the ghost stories, the stories themselves represent a wonderful oral history tradition (many of them are cautionary tales, how many of them refer to somebody getting their just desserts for evil deeds?) which Rachel feels ought to be celebrated in its own right. Around the same time Rachel also formally announced her desire to resurrect an old pirate name from medieval times, and The Victualling Brothers pirate re-enactment group was formed.
In 2007 it was announced that the festival will now be running four times a year, however after this initial flurry of activity the group has been forced to have a few quiet years whilst members fought health problems, moved house, settled down, broke up... all the normal things of everyday life, including in most cases seeing something of their families, having other interests and holding down day jobs whilst PSI classed as the night shift!
As part of the 2008 ghostfest, Tavern Trails (self-guided walking tours of haunted pubs) was launched, which were available from the starting pubs during the festival, one of them is on the History of York website, and on the York Ghost Festival website alongside the two walking tours from the 2009 GhostFest.
Also in 2009 we launched Rivers of Blood: Death, despair, blood and gore: spend an evening exploring the seedy underbelly of York's past with York's Ghostfinder General & Friends. This format has now been incorporated in to The Dead Wenches.
Which brings us on to our new editions: Night Shift took over from Ghost Hosts as a more general title, and next year will see the publication of a new book by Rachel Lacy. Diana Jarvis stole the march on her though, as her first book was launched at the 2010 Ghostfest. Shadows In The Night: Memoirs of a Ghost Hunter is available here.
In 2011, ready for that year's GhostFest, the name of the investigation group was changed to UP:PSI (Unexplained Phenomena: Paranormal & Spectral Investigations) to better reflect the interests of the group. Although the primary interest has always been ghosts, paranormal actually covers a whole lot more but this seems to be mostly overlooked by the general public. The new title was born of long conversations where definitions were questioned: Rachel has said for years that a UFO is not a flying saucer ("is it an object? Is it flying? Do I know what it is? No? Then its an Unidentified Flying Object. Most likely military hardware not little green men."), similarly paranormal means outside of the normal expectations. Things that could be ghosts, until they can be definitely proved to be ghosts or something else, are unexplained phenomena - hence the new name.
OUR APPROACH
Different groups have different approaches to investigations. Having run investigations using mediums and/or psychics, a scientific approach, and a combination of the two, we have decided on staying with the combined approach. Our scientific approach involves recording baselines (temperatures, EMF readings etc); using a combination of digital cameras, 8mm film and 35mm film; using EVP recordings, and employing some logic and common sense!Even the most basic of equipment can be used for an investigation, especially if impromptu: MP3 players can be used as recording devices for audio, and many people now have mobile phones which can take photos. If you want to try using a more traditional device, pendulums were originally a wedding ring on a thread, held over a pregnant woman's bump by a midwife to try to divine the sex of the child: it doesn't take much imagination to create something similar.