Latest News from 2011
Swindon GhostFest 2011 and PSI Investigator Recruitment
PSI is currently gearing up to Swindon GhostFest 2011: a week of events including Heritage Ghost Walks, Mini Ghost Hunts and speaker events. As part of this there are Recruitment Sessions where you can find out about opportunities to become an investigator with PSI. To book visit HauntedSwindon.com
PSI Descends on Seriously Strange
The majority of the PSI team attended the Seriously Strange conference at University of Bath, celebrating 30 years of PSI's national body: ASSAP. The event had several connections to PSI: former PSI investigators Trystan Swale and Dr Simon Sherwood were speaking at the event, and conference heard an update about the joint PSI/Goldsmiths College research grant awarded by ASSAP in 2010. Following the event PSI investigator Steve Wills took the initiative and put his name forward to join the ASSAP Board of Directors with a membership portfolio.
PSI Investigations of Tourist Locations
The staple investigation case for PSI for some years has been the uninvestigated location at the request of interested clients. Ironically these untouched locations recently included Legoland! The PSI view has been that there is limited utility in investigating the same places everyone has investigated. If you really want to get to the bottom of a case you risk 'tourist locations' being too diluted. In 2010-1 PSI attempted a limited project of visiting four 'paranormal tourist' locations to assess whether there was anything ostentsibly different between these locations and the uninvestigated locations we typically visited.
Our conclusion was that there was little difference, beyond a sense of build-up and (sometimes affected) spooky 'context' associated with tourist locations. The only location that stood out as different was Bodmin Jail. PSI will be breaking with tradition and conducting a longitudinal investigation at Bodmin Jail over 2011-2.
100 to 1: PSI Recruitment
Around 100 people attended recruitment sessions to join the PSI investigation team at the end of the 2009.
After a process involving introduction sessions, application form, interview, training weekend and peer-assessed fieldwork candidates were reduced until the most outstanding remained. Following unforeseen circumstances three were reduced one one, and we were pleased to welcome Nicola Burridge to the PSI team.