Alternate Perceptions Magazine, December 2024
My Personal Journey
by: Joey Madia
Photo of Brent Raynes (L) and Joey Madia (R) at the 2019 Mothman Festival at Point Pleasant, West Virginia.
The answer to how my personal journey began in the field of the paranormal changed several years ago while I was a guest on several podcasts. I had been formally studying a variety of phenomena since a profound experience of missing time in 2009, but I suddenly realized that experience did not introduce me to the paranormal. Nor was it my wife and daughter’s abilities as psychic mediums and the continual presence of ghosts and spirits in our homes since at least 2002 because of those abilities. It was my growing up Roman Catholic in a devout Sicilian family, where transmogrification, reincarnation, rising from the dead, curing disease, and the mystical abilities of the saints were seamlessly interwoven into the fabric of our life. From the time I was ten, during my first confession, I have been attempting to amalgamate religion, spirituality, and science into a coherent worldview and personal way of being.
As to that profound experience in 2009… While visiting Point Pleasant, West Virginia, after seeing The Mothman Prophecies, my wife Tonya and I witnessed an interdimensional being and experienced two hours and forty-five minutes of missing time, space–time distortions, and (according to separate regression hypnosis sessions a little more than a decade later) contact with beings not of this Earth. Like the Hills, our experiences were connected, yet unique. After that experience, I said to Tonya, “Well… if the paranormal is going to study us, we need to study it back.” As word got out about what happened in Point Pleasant, several paranormal investigators sought us out. The most well-known, Rosemary Ellen Guiley, became our mentor, publisher, confidante, and friend. In the past 15 years, through our conference presentations, books, field investigations, our own podcast and dozens of others, we have met many more credible field investigators, researchers, and experiencers. The paranormal has continued to study us, and I have ever more intently continued my search for answers.
The lessons we have learned through our personal experiences and field investigations have been profound. I was never particularly interested in the field of UFOlogy, because, living with two gifted psychic mediums, my focus was on ghosts and spirits. Then, just months prior to our regression hypnosis (suggested to us by the host of a late-night radio show), I suddenly took a deep dive into UFOlogy from which I have yet to surface. I believe the impulse to do so was so I would have context for what we discovered about what occurred during our missing time. Not only have I had multiple encounters with UAPs (and have become reasonably skilled at calling them in), but I have also interviewed and read the books written by many credible researchers and experiencers. Over the years, through Ro’s tutelage and well beyond, we have learned: the skills of an interviewer and investigator; not to make assumptions; many phenomena have no single explanation; dark entities feed on misery and fear; and once you have genuinely experienced these phenomena, it’s almost impossible to fabricate, exaggerate, or turn our very serious and important work into a form of theatre, as we see with too many television “reality shows,” weekend warrior “ghost hunters,” and click-baiting podcasts.
We have had many memorable experiences in our 15 years as field investigators and mediators between humans and other intelligences. Crossing over a ghost or clearing a home of a “squatter” have been the most fulfilling—especially when assisted by deceased mentors and family members. There have been times when we have been asked to assist a family after their lives have been deeply disrupted (including physical attack) by dark entities and angry ghosts. This always brings the gravity of what we are doing into sharp relief for me. It is never easy to make the determination that someone involved has some level of mental illness that is fueling or creating the phenomena. We have also experienced physical and psychic attacks as a warning against or in retribution for providing assistance. Tricksters pretending to be mentors or guides have on occasion duped us. Before one meeting, a guide succeeded in exposing these tricksters, warning us, during our initial field visit, to not “eat or drink anything they offer you.” We didn’t. The big takeaways have been that we must never make assumptions, that many phenomena are not one thing, and that—given the four stages of a haunting (manifestation, infestation, oppression, and possession)—early intervention is imperative. Once infestation becomes oppression, suffering, danger, and harm exponentially increase. And yes… I have witnessed what I believe is genuine possession, including a change in eye color. The most important things I have learned are that consciousness survives the death of the body and humans are most assuredly in contact with EBEs.
Throughout the past 15 years, I have met plenty of researchers, authors, experiencers, and presenters who are doing things, as the Lakota term it, in a good way. They are not sensationalists. They know that not every haunting is demonic, not every shadow is a cryptid, not every light in the sky is a UAP. They share their knowledge and evidence. They network to compare notes and stay current. They advocate for transparency and employ a healthy skepticism (as opposed to being a True Believer or Cynic… neither of which garner us credibility nor move our studies forward). They are always learning and staying humble because there is still plenty we don’t know.
I have already mentioned some things that need correcting. Here are some others. One essential task was mentioned in Brent’s invitation. We need to employ a multidisciplinary approach. To go even further, it needs to be a transdisciplinary approach, as I have advocated for and practiced for 34 years in my other field of focus—the performing and creative arts. Given the multidimensional nature of what we call the paranormal and supernatural, we need a basic understanding of quantum physics, psychology, neuroscience, anthropology, comparative religion/spirituality, mythology, sociology, and geography. All of these disciplines offer context (and a piece or two of the puzzle) for what might be happening and why the same entity or phenomenon manifests differently to different people. When a veteran says, “It is all ONE THING and everyone else’s notions are crazy, lies, or they are obviously being manipulated,” this is both dangerous and disrespectful. The same mechanism has weaponized religion. Further, it is just plain wrong. As we know, Bigfoot is often seen with a UAP, those who have abductee/contactee experiences subsequently display enhanced psi abilities, and one experiencer’s faerie is another’s EBE.
With the stakes higher than ever given the seriousness of the recent House hearings and bills, the testimony of numerous whistleblowers, the continued evidence becoming public from the Pentagon and elsewhere, credible researchers and experiencers must be at their best to broaden the conversation and gather as much carefully collected data as we can. The limited number of talking heads and government shills with a microphone and a front row seat at the Congressional hearings has never been good for UFOlogy (or the study of the paranormal in general). So, I offer a thank you and request to carry on with what you are doing to the dozens of experiencers and field investigators I have met who are going about this endeavor in a good way. You are the heart and soul of the field. Thank you, Brent, for the invitation and for being a role model to so many for so long. As you always say to me, on to the next!
