Working Title: Debunk

Sample Chapter

“Animals and children are more open to seeing things, Mr. Anderson, hasn’t anyone ever told you that?”

Of course, he’d heard that. Old wives’ tales no doubt and not that he had ever given it much thought but give Oliver Anderson five minutes and he could come up with a list of at least a dozen completely plausible explanations.

“It’s because they don’t realize what they’re seeing isn’t supposed to be there” continued Jerel barely noticing the look of distain on the reporter’s face.

Just let him keep talking Ollie thought to himself. In his experience, the crazier these fuckers are, the more they liked to hear the sound of their own voice. Dr Shah liked to talk in questions he’d noticed. Not ordinary questions though, the questions Shah asked in conversation required no response was sure Shah only did it so he’d sound more prophetic when he carried on with his lectures.

“Before you come with us Mr. Anderson, I want you to understand one thing. You can think what you like about our work, mock us behind our back, write what you like, there’s nothing you can say or think about us and our work that we haven’t heard before, but just consider this – science’s understanding of the human brain is very much a work in progress.”

This ought to be good Ollie thought, sitting up in his seat to give the professor the impression he was listening while attempting to cover a wry smirk that just screamed, ‘bullshit’. The Times’ most hardened skeptic was about to go on a ghost hunt with these pseudo-scientists and here was Shah talking about the human brain, like he was trying to legitimize their work.

“Ever heard of CIP Mr. Anderson?”

He had actually, not that Shah was going to let him answer.

“It stands for congenital insensitivity to pain and it is a very rare, very real condition. You see with CIP, the pain receptors in the brain are switched off, meaning sufferers of the condition are incapable of feeling pain. Before I lost my license, I was treating a young girl that suffered from CIP. It was really quite a remarkable thing to see and completely challenged everything I thought I knew about the human brain. Burns from sitting too close to the heater, cuts, scrapes, broken bones, she felt none of it.”

Ollie had done his research on Shah, he’d read medical journals published by Shah while he was still licensed where he theorized, but never proven mind you, that people had the ability to consciously activate parts of the brain that would make them impervious to pain.

“From the day we’re born we begin to train our brains. What we teach it is entirely up to us but in most cases a product of our environment. For centuries, Buddhists have been practicing meditation and there’s plenty of completely credible research suggesting that mind-body therapies have real medical application to pain management.”

“When it comes to the paranormal, we’re told from a very young age that there’s no such thing as monsters. No such thing as ghosts. There’s no one hiding in the closest and no boogey man under the bed, and we believe it.”

“In a sense, we become brain washed” continue Shah.

Ollie wondered how many times he’d practiced this speech and how far other people had let him get through this verbal diatribe before up and walking away.

He peered out the window to see the rest of Shah’s crew loading the van and count at least four others that had heard this story and by the looks of them bought into it.

“We convince ourselves that there’s no such thing as ghosts and teach ourselves to only trust the things we can see of feel. But just like my previous CIP patient, Mr. Anderson, just because we can’t see something, doesn’t mean it’s any less there.”

Reaching across Jerel Shah’s desk, Ollie picked up his recording device to make sure it was still recording. It was.

“So, you’re telling me, what you and your team believe is that only the people that believe in the existence ghosts will be able to see ghosts?” he responded. “Doesn’t that just all sound a little too convenient?”

“Maybe,” said Jerel satisfied that the man across from him had at least understood the analogy, “it’s the theory we’re working on.”

“Let me ask you this doctor, have you ever seen a ghost?”