ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the pathways by which paranormal investigators first became interested in the topic of ghosts and hauntings and explores how these beliefs were nurtured or discouraged within the investigators’ socialization contexts. It suggests that both perceived spiritual experiences and cultural influences are important precursors to individuals’ later involvement in paranormal investigation. Most people who later became paranormal investigators report one or more early-life experiences that they perceived as spiritual at the time. Unlike the investigators, twelve of the thirty-eight people who became interested in ghosts early in life did not trace this interest to a sensory or extrasensory encounter with some spiritual entity or energy. One of the individuals who developed a later-life interest in ghosts reported growing up in permissive household and holding affirming beliefs as an adult even before pursuing paranormal investigation. This brings the total number of investigators whose interest developed in an affirming nomic context to eighteen.
