ABSTRACT
This chapter explores how investigators define sensory, extrasensory, and technological sources of knowledge as “evidence.” The determination that a spirit is present in a setting is a product of face-to-face negotiations of meaning during moments when something seemingly anomalous occurs. In paranormal investigators efforts to make such a determination, paranormal investigators engage in three forms of interpretive work: somatic work, discernment work, and techno-empiricist work. As with the mediums studied by Robin Wooffitt, sensitives who participate in paranormal investigation frequently couch their discursive displays of spirit communication in passive language, thereby presenting themselves as recipients of knowledge gained by extrasensory means. The primary goal of the forms of interpretive work is to produce somatic, extrasensory, and technological claims that paranormal investigators can treat as credible evidence of spiritual presences. In order to not undermine the credibility of such claims, investigators also engage in a parallel process of “debunking.”.
