| FOR
IMMEDIATE RELEASE |
JANUARY
2005 |
GHOST EXPEDITIONS
Kicks off 2005 in Travel Weekly
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HOLLYWOOD:
Ghost Expeditions was the Destination
Feature in the travel trade, Travel
Weekly the first week of January 2005.
GHOST EXPEDITIONS RAISES 'ENTITIES'
AND QUESTIONS
By Destinations Editor
Margaret Myre, NEW ORLEANS -- New Orleans' idiopathic,
off-kilter preoccupation with the spirit world may get
the validation it never asked for in the form of Gray
Line New Orleans' newest tour.
The given name of the tour is Ghost Expeditions, and it's
billed as "the world's original paranormal/ghost investigation
venture" -- so "tour" hardly describes it (and the word
does raise a prickly frown from its promoters).
What makes Ghost Expeditions (GE) different is its feel
of authenticity: It turns curious tourists into "hands-on
participants in a parapsychological field investigation,"
according to Daena Smoller, a field investigator and business
partner of parapsychologist Dr.Larry Montz, founder of
the International Society for Paranormal Research (ISPR),
which in turn created Ghost Expeditions.
In other words, scoffers can get the sarcasm |
scared out of them
while field investigators record the experience.
Guests also take part in psychic exercises and monitor
paranormal activity using hand-held instruments under
the watchful eye of the investigators, some of whom are
clairvoyant, she said.
GE provides equipment (or you can bring your own) that
includes something that reads atmospheric fluctuations
associated with the presence of a ghost (the temperature
drops), and something called L-Rods, which you hold in
your hand to communicate with one of the house's "earthbound
entities." L-Rods can tell if the entity is male or female,
although why it matters now hardly seems relevant.
The rods also help detect "residual energy," which, according
to Smoller, is energy left behind from some kind of event
that happened at the site. In everyday life, for example,
energy from a family argument might linger and |
be detected as an
oppressive feeling by later guests, she said. "In the
GE properties, many participants describe different feelings
and different events in different rooms, but it's the
same thing over and over, night after night," Smoller
said. "These participants are 'reading' residual energies
from previous events.
"Another concept," Smoller added, "is residual hauntings,
which manifest themselves in visuals, smells, sounds or
a combination of each, from an event in the past. For
example, at the Gettysburg Battlefield, people hear screaming,
smell cannon smoke. Entities don't come back or stay around
to 're-enact' bad things. These are 'residual hauntings.'
"
Whether GE's claims of entities and residual energies
are authentic or just a lot of mumbo jumbo, the venture,
powered by Gray Line New Orleans since Oct. 1, is a huge
success, having reached sell-out status on Nov. 19, six
weeks after launch, according to Smoller. |
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A number of hotels
are implementing packages centered on Ghost Expeditions
ventures.
Frank Quinn, sales director for the Decatur Hotel Group
in New Orleans, said he will have a paranormal package
at his hotels, all including Ghost Expeditions, by the
first of the year.
The hotels are the Lafayette, Le Parc St. Charles, Hotel
Le Cirque, the Pelham, the St. James, the Historic French
Market Inn, the Cotton Exchange, Chateau Dupre and the
Holiday Inn Express.
The package includes a Ghost Expedition; a tour of the
Pharmacy Museum and the Wax Museum; dinner at the Court
of Two Sisters, which has been ISPR-certified as haunted;
drinks for two at a select bar and a copy of the book,
"ISPR Investigates the Ghosts of New Orleans."
Rates start at $199 per person, double, for two nights
and $249 per person for three nights.
Each Expedition is managed by an ISPR-certified researcher,
inside a noncommercial property validated by ISPR as "actively
haunted," Smoller said. Expeditions are limited to 24
persons.
The location of the property is kept a secret, although
it does lie outside the French Quarter and within a 10-mile
radius (15 |
minutes or less)
of the pick-up point, and Gray Line New Orleans provides
transportation to and from the site. Departures are at
8 p.m. from the Jax Brewery shopping mall's information
desk, at the Toulouse Street entrance.
GE suggests that participants wear comfortable clothing
(there is no heat inside the ISPR research properties
-- and no rest rooms). Sneakers are the recommended footwear.
Participants may be videotaped for research purposes,
and the data gleaned may be released at a future date
without compensation to participants. (Now that even the
most skeptical of skeptics can believe.)
For those who are afraid to participate, a spokeswoman
suggested taking a Gray Line Ghost Tour in the French
Quarter. Or they can buy the book.
"ISPR Investigates the Ghosts of New Orleans,"
by Montz and Smoller, is available for $14.95 at bookstores
throughout New Orleans, at Amazon.com and directly through
the ISPR at (323) 644-8866. In addition, a new, one-hour
documentary, "ISPR Investigates New Orleans Rich
& Haunted," is available on DVD through the ISPR
office for $19.95. |
Ghost Expeditions
operates nightly year-round, except from December through
Mardi Gras, when it assumes the Gray Line seasonal schedule
of Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays. The GE,
which is commissionable at 15%, costs $65. Reservations
are required. Group rates are available for 10 or more.
Gray Line New Orleans Group Sales will schedule special
times for charters.
For reservations and gift certificates, call Gray Line
New Orleans at (800) 535-7786 or (504) 569-1401. ISPR
can be contacted directly at (323) 644-8866.
Contact:
Ghost Expeditions
News Releases
4712-541 Admiralty Way
Marina del Rey, CA 90292
323.644.8866
Info@GhostExpeditions.com |
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Copyright 1995 - 2007 by International
Society for Paranormal Research. All Rights Reserved.
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