When I say the name “Ryan Buell” what thoughts come to your mind? Exorcism, ghost stories and compassion come to my mind. At the end of 2008, a new “ghost hunter” was introduced to us through the A&E Network. I was fascinated. I’d seen shows like Ghost Hunters on SyFy where they tried to get evidence of a haunting in order to prove that a place definitively was or was not haunted. But this new show gave us a new perspective. It was less about evidence and more about the haunted. Episode after episode we watched as young and old were terrified, scared out of their homes and occasionally physically attacked for no understandable reason.

In writing the book Paranormal State: My Journey into the Unknown it seemed as if Ryan wanted to fill us in to some of the pieces that his 30-minute show couldn’t tell us. He talks about the founding of PRS (Paranormal Research Society) at Penn State University and how rigorous his membership requirements were. He talks about starting a paranormal convention at Penn State called UNIV-CON where paranormal researchers, psychics, demonologists and just curious people can come together to learn from each other. He also talks about each of the episodes in the Season 1 of Paranormal State and how to him, they’re more than just 30 minutes of entertainment, but rather they are cases where clients are at their wit’s end to fix a paranormal problem. And he also gives us a little insight into himself from his sexual orientation to his early childhood experiences with the paranormal.

There are a few things that surprised me while I read this book, so I wanted to share them in hopes that you may give it a read yourself.

1. PRS, which Ryan Buell founded at Penn State while a college student, requires its members to go through a rigorous training and interview process to become researchers. Ryan actually came up with curriculum related to paranormal tech, paranormal entities and codes of conduct while on an investigation. Oftentimes, there were students who couldn’t pass the final exams or couldn’t handle the additional homework his curriculum required and so was never admitted to the investigation teams.
2. Ryan is skeptical of all psychics and psychic abilities. Throughout the first season we see a number of psychics who regularly appear and give readings of their location while doing a walk-through of the investigation area. Sometimes they psychics are right on about what they’re saying and sometimes they are completely off. Even Chip Coffee totally missed the mark on a case where there was a suicide involved. Because Ryan never confirms or denies their findings to them, we don’t really get to see how wrong they really are. Once though, he did call a psychic out for not being able to read a colleague accurately.
3. The order of the episodes does not reflect the order of the cases as they were conducted. This may not surprise you, but it does explain to me why in one episode Ryan claims that a demon has been following him from case to case. It just so happened, he had two demonic cases back-to-back although I believe the episodes aired quite a bit apart from one another during the season.
4. Elfie is a very personable, take-charge person according to Ryan. In the episodes we see her slinking in the background with a hat or a hoodie or some sunglasses on, not really saying a whole lot. I was surprised when Ryan described an incident where the family needed to leave their home in the middle of the night and Elfie was consoling one the children on the way to the hotel. She comes across very stand-off-ish on screen.
5. Katrina and Heather were not full-fledged investigators when the filming started. They were still in training and we didn’t even realize it until one episode Ryan gave them a case to handle on their own and later gave them official PRS gear to welcome them to the club.

Not all the cases were solved, and although we don’t see this, Ryan and his team often revisit clients multiple times to help them resolve their issue with the paranormal. They also make them go through psychological exams, physical exams and sleep studies before they will accept their case just to rule out the obvious conclusions of mental disease or sleep paralysis.

If you like the TV series, which I believe is no longer airing but is available on NetFlix, then you’ll love this book because Ryan takes us from the beginning where he was being courted by A&E to the end where the first season premiered and he was invited to a premiere party in NYC.

Side Note: I recently learned that Ryan Buell is now suffering from pancreatic cancer; he was diagnosed about a year ago and is living with his folks in SC while he receives treatment. Recently he moved PRS’s headquarters down there as well so he could still be involved as much as possible. I hope you all will join me in praying that Ryan be given the strength he needs to endure and that God will provide perfect healing according to His will.

If you could ask Ryan anything about his experience with the paranormal, what would it be?