A staticky ring tone filled the receiver as I dialed up the New England Society of Psychic Research while a student journalist at the University of Toronto. It was 2001 and I was looking to write my monthly Window column, “Paranormal Frontiers”, on the Amityville Horror. A calm and pleasant […]
Brian Baker
Founder Brian Baker’s take on the supernatural world.
The Superstitious Times chimes in on one year
It could have been inspired by existential angst, but as I sat in my Toronto apartment a year ago, both children snug in their beds and the wife doing the Netflix and chill, I pondered what portion of writing was absent from my career. Clearly the supernatural and how it […]
The give-and-take relationship the supernatural has with pop culture
As someone with an undergrad in archaeology, which was populated by a chunk of anthropology courses, I have a deep fascination with how the supernatural evolves in pop culture. And, in fairness, given the rise of creepypastas — uncanny internet tales — from pop culture. I’ve had the opportunity to […]
Being employable haunts us, prevents us from opening up about the unknown
In my investigations of Canadian folklore and supernatural stories, one recurring theme has seized potential interviewees: the risk to their being employable. Their concern with getting a job is warranted, because, should it get out that they’ve witnessed a ghost or bigfoot, they could be seen as odd. I get […]
Beliefs aren’t at play when reporting on the supernatural
Sometimes, when I was out-of-line as a kid, my mom would warn me she’d make me read the Bible. One other time, when I was older, it was Bible camp — a passing moment where I made a glib comment about the Faith Baptist bus scooting by. I’m sure those […]
What the paranormal means to me, as a journalist
As a kid, the supernatural captured my imagination like a fox captures a vole under the high north snows. I would dig deeper and continually absorb anything and everything paranormal. Still, it was only a morsel. I was acquainted with every episode of Unsolved Mysteries — the one with Robert […]