Warner Bros.Halloween isn’t just another excuse for a fancy dress party, despite what it has come to represent in recent years.
The holiday originated as a time dedicated to remembering the dead, including saints, martyrs and the faithful departed (cheers Wikipedia). It has roots in ancient pagan rituals, as well as Gaelic and Celtic festivals, and we all know how much those crazy dudes loved carving faces into pumpkins, right?
So if you fancy going old school for this year’s Halloween, forget your mate’s party that’ll undoubtedly be full of half-arsed costumes and a tonne of that weird, fake cobweb stuff that you can never get rid of. Instead, why not spend the night in an actual graveyard and, as a bonus, actually get paid for it?
A real life paranormal investigator is looking for real life human people to participate in a spooky study this Halloween. And if you’re up for it, you’ll get paid £200 for your one night’s work.
The investigator is looking for five people to come to a ‘paranormal hotspot’ in Worcestershire, England, and has naturally chosen October 31 for the experiment as ‘the 31st tends to be a more active time for paranormal activity’.
Here’s what the paranormal investigator says:
I need five people, who I will pay £200 for a night’s work with me. They won’t be required to do anything as such, except follow my instructions and stay at the location all night. It’s also worth noting that they’ll be required to sleep in an inverted pentagram and if they do decide to leave, which they are free to do at any point, they won’t receive payment.
Of course, this isn’t going to be a simple camp out with your pals. If all goes to plan, you will definitely experience… something.
The investigator continues:
I’m planning on performing various rituals in order to attract spirits near the epicentre of the energy surrounding the area, and will need the five people chosen to participate in them with me. For anyone who is keen to participate, they’ll need to send me detailed background info on their childhood and family history, as well as every tragedy that has occurred in their life.
The chosen participants will be notified on the morning of October 31, and will be given a time and place to meet.
If chosen, you must travel alone to the location, and afterwards be expected to give detailed feedback of your experience the next day and one week later ‘to see what energy transmitted through each person and what they saw, as well as whether they felt any spiritual presence come over them during the night’.
The investigator also states that, if you’ve disclosed your location to anyone else, they will be ‘forced to call it off’. I don’t know about you, but I’m already scared.
They add:
I must stress this is a serious event, and attending should not be taken lightly. We will be calling on spirits and entities from the other side, and if anyone feels they won’t be able to stay for the entire night, I would recommend they don’t put themselves forward.
If this sounds like your idea of a great Halloween, you can check out more details here, and apply to take part here.
Happy Halloween!
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Charlie Cocksedge is a journalist and sub-editor at UNILAD. He graduated from the University of Manchester with an MA in Creative Writing, where he learnt how to write in the third person, before getting his NCTJ. His work has also appeared in such places as The Guardian, PN Review and the bin.