We might think our kids are amazing and 'so grown up' and they beg us to take them on a ghost hunt because they have watched all of the shows on TV and seen all of the movies, but there is an area of duty of care that every tour provider needs to understand before they let allow children to attend. If you run tours, investigations, or anything that brings the public into a dark building with a bit of history hanging off the walls, you are not just telling stories. You are legally responsible for what happens to the people in front of you. That’s where duty of care comes in, and it’s one of those phrases people throw around without really understanding what it means until something goes wrong. In Australia, duty of care is not optional and it’s not flexible depending on the mood of the night. It’s a legal obligation to provide a reasonably safe environment for the people who have paid to be there. That doesn’t just mean making sure no one falls down a staircase. It extends to physical safety, emotional wellbeing, and anything that could be considered a foreseeable risk. That phrase, foreseeable risk, is the one that matters because it covers more than most people realise. Think about what we actually do on a ghost tour or investigation. We walk people through dark spaces where visibility is limited. We deal with uneven flooring, old buildings, narrow hallways, and sometimes confined areas where groups move together. Then layer on top of that the psychological side of things. People get frightened, they panic, they react in ways they didn’t expect. None of that is unusual, which is exactly why the law sees it as foreseeable. You are expected to anticipate it, not react to it after the fact. Where this starts to get more serious is when children are involved. The law doesn’t view them as just smaller versions of adults. Children are considered a vulnerable group because they don’t assess risk properly. They act on impulse, they get caught up in the moment, and they often don’t understand the difference between controlled fear and real danger. That means the level of responsibility sitting on you as the operator increases the moment a minor is part of your group.

Hi new subscribers - thank you for being here. We are here to raise some interesting subjects and talk about the state of the paranormal world and what we think we know and what we really don't. Because let's face it - we may think we know a lot, but do we? We try and put up a discussion/article every Monday and please feel free to drop in your comments.

Hey everyone, Anne and Renata are back with another article for you to consider. This time we talk about the tendency for people on tours and investigations just dying to see something in front of their eyes so that they can believe all of this is true, and getting bitterly disappointed when they cannot conjure up a full bodied apparition of a lady in white floating down the nearest hallway. Just because you cannot see her does it man she is not there? Let's get into it. You hear people say it all the time. “If you’re there, give me a sign.” It sounds simple enough, almost like you’re ordering takeaway. Ask, receive, done. But when you actually step into this work, when you’ve been in dark buildings long enough and sat quietly long enough to notice what is really happening, you realise very quickly that signs don’t always show up the way people expect them to. Most people are waiting for the big moment. The full body apparition standing in the corner, something dramatic moving across the room, a voice that clearly says their name. And yes, those things do get reported, but they are rare. Not impossible, just rare. What you are far more likely to get is something subtle, something easy to dismiss if you are not paying attention or if you’ve already decided what a “real” sign should look like. The problem isn’t that Spirit isn’t responding. The problem is that people are often looking straight past the response because it doesn’t match the version they’ve built in their head. Let’s talk about the ways Spirit actually communicates, the quieter ones that don’t get enough credit but show up far more often than the dramatic stuff. A sudden and very specific smell is one of the most common. Not just any smell, but something that makes no sense in the environment you’re in. Perfume in an empty building, cigarette smoke where no one has smoked for years, or something like lavender or old cooking. It arrives, hangs there, then disappears just as quickly. Temperature shifts are another one. Not the whole room dropping ten degrees like in the movies, but a cold patch that you walk into and then out of again. Or a warm spot that shouldn’t be there. It’s subtle, but once you notice it, you can’t not notice it.

Our latest True Hauntings episode has just dropped. Apologies for the delay. I honestly thought it was due next week! lol - Anne https://open.spotify.com/episode/4o8wVhxIE1QiOR5Ia2O4ta?si=aCsUo5zWTVmcXyHM3rVR_Q https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/case-201-the-girl-who-was-bitten-by-nothing/id1537052147?i=1000762092124

If you’ve ever sat at a table with a Ouija board, even just once, you’ll know it carries a strange sort of reputation that sits somewhere between curiosity and caution. People lean in, half fascinated and half unsure whether they’ve just opened a door they don’t fully understand. That tension is exactly why it has lasted as long as it has. A Ouija board, in simple terms, is a talking board. It is marked with letters, numbers, and basic words like yes, no, and goodbye. Participants place their fingers lightly on a small pointer, often called a planchette, and ask questions with the intention of receiving answers from spirits. Whether you believe that movement comes from subconscious muscle response or something external is where opinions start to split, but the experience itself has been remarkably consistent across generations. The modern version of the Ouija board became popular in the late 19th century, during the height of the Spiritualist movement. This was a time when people were actively trying to communicate with the dead, often in parlours filled with candlelight and expectation. It was not fringe behaviour back then. It was fashionable. Entire communities were built around séances and spirit communication, especially in America and parts of Europe. The Ouija board offered a more accessible version of that experience. You did not need a medium. You just needed a board and a willingness to try. By the early 20th century, it had become commercialised, sold as both a game and a tool. That dual identity is where things started to get complicated. On one hand, it was marketed like a family pastime. On the other, it was being used in very serious spiritual contexts. Over time, especially through the mid to late 1900s, its popularity began to decline. Horror films played a large part in that. The board shifted from something curious and social into something associated with danger and possession. People stopped seeing it as a novelty and started seeing it as a risk.