The Stanley Hotel, from our investigation there in 2008

One of our FB friends linked a few weeks back to this para-listicle about America’s most haunted hotels. We normally don’t read these, since they’re usually intended to promote some book or some group someplace, but this one caught our eye since we had actually investigated two of these places – the (in)famous Stanley Hotel, in Estes Park, CO, and the St. James in Cimarron, NM.

OK, fair enough, so we read the piece (at least the sections on these two hotels) and we posted a lengthy comment about both of them. Just so you know, we weren’t nasty or vulgar: here was our response to the post:

My wife and I have investigated at the Stanley (twice) and the St J, as well as a few other reputedly haunted hotels not on your list. All three investigations yielded not a single bit of compelling evidence. The staff had the Stanley had a few interesting stories to tell, and we got a few ‘orbs’, but that’s all. The first time we stayed in the famously haunted room, investigated most of the night, and zip. This was a few years before the Stanley turned their haunted reputation into a mini-concession – exhibits, charging for investigative teams, paid onsite mediums (really ???), paranormal conventions with TV personalities, etc. The place is a carnival now.

The St J was also a complete bust, although in fairness it was  Saturday night and there was a lot of noise coming from the bar. We asked a few staff there for stories, none had any. It’s a great old Victorian building and a nice place to stay, but its reputation appears much scarier than the reality, at least in our experience. They do have fake bullet holes in the dining room ceiling, to ‘mimic’ the bullet holes from the late 19th century that were plastered over or removed years ago.

I do accept that a reputation for being haunted is great for business these days, and I don’t begrudge any hospitality business trying to drum up paying customers. But in our experience, actually looking for the real thing is quite different from enjoying a good ghost story.

Doesn’t make for particularly fun copy, does it?   

That wasn’t too nasty, was it? Well, the webmaster there evidently thought so, because the comment got whacked by the administrator and didn’t appear below the story. I guess any feedback that scrapes against the legend, even if it was based on firsthand experience, is rather dimly regarded.

The author of the piece is named Troy Taylor – I am unfamiliar with him and his work – but his bio describes him thusly: “Troy Taylor is the author of more than 100 books on ghosts, hauntings, crime and the unexplained in America. He is also the owner of American Hauntings, one of the oldest haunted history websites on the internet. He is also the owner of a publishing company, eight ghost and crime tour companies and has appeared in numerous books, magazines, television shows, documentaries and one feature film about the supernatural.

Perhaps that explains it, then.

Now, we want to be kind and fair to our good friends at the Stanley Hotel. The facility itself is stately, well kept, in a beautful location and, from our couple of trips up there (one investigation and one “just visiting”), the staff there are all friendly and open and welcoming. Most of us who live in Colorado regard the place with fondness and a gentle sense of pride…whether we hunt ghosts or not.

And…being the middle of winter, and not located near any of Colorado’s ski areas, it’s the low season for them and there’s always a need to drum up business.

Having issued these disclaimers, what is up with the “Celebrity Ghost Hunt” thing? Our Facebook feed just got an invite for a mass ghost hunt up there on February 25th with TV para-celebs like GH‘s Dustin Pari and KJ McCormick, ”Fact or Faked” hosts Austin Porter and Jael De Pardo (does anybody actually watch this show?), and others from the para-TV world.

The cost? A meet ‘n greet (hang with the TV folk and do an investigation – no overnight room) is $235 !!!! Investigation only (no celeb schmoozing) is a mere $163. And if you just want to oggle the celebs, you can do that for about $30.

Seriously – what is this turning into? Plenty of us who have a deep and abiding interest in the paranormal, attempting to reconcile personal beliefs or chase that elusive “definitive evidence of an afterlife”, initially regarded the explosion of para-TV with glee and a vague sense of vindication. The boom has (predictably) turned into something of a cheap carnival, a kind of digital-device free-for-all where nice facilities turn para-fans loose with K2′s and digital cameras for an evening, imitating their fave TV stars and gaping with wonderment at orb photos, while the proprietors count up the cash and the promoters scurry to write contracts for the next event.

Is this what paranormal inquiry has turned into?

Look – we don’t know if the place is haunted. We did an investigation up there a few years ago, and got more or less nothing save one interesting photo (which was “proof” of nothing). And hey, far be it for us to disparage free enterprise. We have no reason to question the staff stories we heard while we were up there…but stories are stories.  We’d like to think the whole point of paranormal investigations is to remove the existence of ghosts from the fabric of lore and establish it as real.

We’d also like to think that the search for spirits is still a quiet, private and (sorry to sound precious about this) somewhat solemn experience. It is a tricky enough proposition sifting through evidence, battling personal biases and reconciling the fact that anything approaching a “scientific” investigation demands extremely rigorous controls and a deeply skeptical approach, neither of which are likely to be enforced at any level with a few dozen para-TV fans bumping into each other in darkened hallways and EMF-reading each other’s cell phones.

Haunted locations are not zoos. If, as many of us believe, they are places with trapped and possibly tormented spirits, those spirits should be treated with respect and dignity. Not coaxed to leaving little blips on digital equipment and not treated like prized trout at the end of a fishing line.

We understand most people don’t get a chance to see a place as famously haunted as the Stanley very often. But we also think treating spiritual activity as a carnival with an admission price does both the discipline and the spirits a regrettable disservice.

Mrs. Wilson is one of the ghosts of the Stanley Hotel, in Estes Park, Colorado. I have come here in search of Stephen King. Or to be precise, in search of the roots of The Shining, King’s 1977 novel about alcohol, fatherhood, creativity, and the spookiness of off-season hotels.

For what it’s worth, our fun and pleasant stay at the Stanley last summer yielded about the same quotient of paranormal rattlings as this writer experienced. We’d go back, of course, but apart from nearly being charged by an annoyed mama elk, nothing particularly scary, spooky or menacing happened to us there. Hey…maybe next time?