Thursday, August 25, 2011

Contacting a Demonologist or Clergy

This is going out to the several paranormal teams that I have spoke with in the last few weeks.  How do you get the family your helping the help they need?  Honestly, I don't know.
The demonologist sometimes will respond and sometimes they won't.  I have the STRONG impression that unless their is a television camera involved, they don't want to be bothered.  If you are like CVAPI and collecting the evidence from the location to present to them, it still does not seem to matter.
In the instance of the Maitland case, in all honesty we got lucky.  Sarah Maitland has often commended me for not leaving them high and dry.  The only thing we could do at that point is reach out to those that could help that family and hope for the best.  Dwayne did respond.  Was it because he was currently working on his documentary?  I don't know, and none of us care.  They got the help they needed.  We reached out to several well known demonologist and a couple that are popular in "paranormal clergy" to which they never responded.
I do want to stress that the Maitland case is NOT the worst case we have ever had.  We have had a few, some in which the families themselves have contacted well known demonologist that were seeking an incredible amount of money to come to Virginia, and yes indeed, they wanted to contact producers first.
In two separate cases we have contacted those "well known" in paranormal clergy.  One of them wanted a tremendous amount of money for travel, and "his time".  The other wanted to turn it over to his own paranormal team to which they contacted us wanting to know how much the family was willing to pay.  I can agree with covering their travel expenses, but not for paying for their time or for them to make a profit.
In one particular case the family had already left the home when they contacted us.  (They no longer live at that location.)  The fiasco of trying to get them help was a joke to say the least.  I still have producers contacting me to this day on that very case.  This was a rental property and the owner wants a lot of money for them to even enter the location.  This case was "similar" to the Maitland case, but much more severe in paranormal activity.  (8 renters in 24 months.)
And yes, I still have families in need of assistance to which we are unable to provide.  We do not or have ever proclaimed to clear a location.  All we can do is reach out and have them do the same.
You will notice that a lot of these well known's have "call us" or "contact us" on their websites.  Well unless you mention $$$$ or producer, good luck with getting them to assist.  Even in the Maitland case, I prepared them to be ready to pay for someone's travel.  Since they did agree to air their case, Discovery covered all of their expenses.
So what do you do?  Listen, and be there for them.  Have them reach out to their local clergy.  (To which most won't respond.) Keep pushing forward doing what you do best, and hopefully one day someone will step up to assist. (Or in some cases the family will move, in which is not always the answer.)
Negative cases are few and far in between and an actual demonic case is rare.  The majority of our cases are seeking confirmation that it is indeed paranormal activity.  Our screening process on investigation requests has become much harder.  Due to the airing of Demon Exorcist it seems most are reporting demonic haunts.  This has left us to sort out who is having actual activity, why do they feel its demonic and to question if they want to be on TV.
In the event a producer does call you on these "negative cases".  They will indeed get them the help they need, but be warned there are drawbacks.  In one of our cases that was not negative, the family pulled out at 8PM the night prior to filming.  The problem?  This particular producer also worked on two other well known shows and our contracts did not match.  In the Maitland case they twisted their story in a bad way.  The family got through that, recognizing they got the help they needed.  However, they are still being bashed on the Internet through some "self proclaimed Christians", to which their children read, as if this family has not been through enough.
So to the paranormal teams out there, keep pushing forward, but realize there is so much you can do.
Meanwhile our new website will launch soon and you may continue to contact me at http://www.cvapi.com/

Monday, August 22, 2011

Website, Forum & Link Exchange

CVAPI's website has been under construction for the last few weeks.  The new website should launch in the next few days, offering easier navigation to the site, and supporting all smartphones.  Meanwhile there are many links on the site currently that are not functioning.  Also, we have run into a problem with our link exchange, loosing many of the links.  If you have us linked, or are interested in a link exchange please email me at Jackie@cvapi.com.
CVAPI's forum has varying topics and a lot of heavy traffic.  Due to other projects I have indeed let the forum fall by the wayside.  We will begin adding new topics and continue to move forward so please feel free to register and join us on our forum.