From what I remember, my father was a rational, no-nonsense man who rejected unbelievable claims and questioned unsubstantiated speculation. He could spot a sham a mile away and he had no problem walking away from a charlatan. To some degree, his profound skepticism made it difficult for him to connect with organized religion. He kept his spirituality to himself.
When one of my motherâs family members presented me with a coffee table book on the occult for my birthday, my father was not pleased. The Readerâs Digest book âInto the Unknownâ was an omnibus edition collecting accounts of UFOs and aliens; clairvoyance, telepathy, and reincarnation; ghosts and poltergeists; Atlantis and ancient earth mysteries; and witchcraft, monsters, possession, and exorcism. The book may as well have been a gateway drug for me, because it sparked an intense interest in ghosts, hauntings and all things weird and wonderful. If you had met me when I was 10 years old and you asked me what careers interested me, the answer would have been âparapsychologist.â