About

My name is Christopher McCollum, and I am a member of L.E.M.U.R. Paranormal Investigations, based in Asheville, North Carolina. I consider myself a historian by trade, and I’ve been conducting historical tours through my hometown here in the mountains for the whole of my adult life. I’ve worked off and on in construction and landscaping, but I always come back to what interests me most: That super-computer between our ears, and how it perceives the world around us. I’ve had perhaps a dozen blogs online at any one time, covering a range of topics from politics, fashion, technology, video games and movies to my favorite project with Gralien Report blogger Micah A. Hanks, Culture of Spirits; A culturally sophisticated blog about alcohol’s impact on history, economics, and society. However, this is my first foray into writing about the paranormal, aside from some creative writing.

I’ve been fascinated by the paranormal since I was a small child (I particularly remember how enthralled I was with my dad’s collection of magazines dealing with UFOs and alien abductions), and I grew up hearing stories from family and friends. During several teenage years, however, I fell away from the field as my interests became occupied by other things, from sports, to music, to that unfathomable joy/curse of budding romances. One chance coincidence however at age 18, put me back into contact with the paranormal, and in a very big way. I got a job as a ghost tour guide, which put me back on the path to where I currently am. After a year, I used that as a launchpad to join L.E.M.U.R., and have since participated in investigations all over the east coast and the Caribbean.

My first appearance on national television comes March 1st, 2010, on National Geographic Channel’s Paranatural, in which the L.E.M.U.R. team investigates the Brown Mountain Lights, outside of Morganton, North Carolina.

My hobbies are wide spread, and to many of my friends, very paradoxical; From playing soccer and basketball, to fashion and fine liquors, back to camping and fishing deep in the wilderness while debating politics and court rulings, days away from civilization. I listen to all types of music, whatever strikes my fancy, and I can make a proper Old Fashioned in the back of a pickup truck during the middle of the night with nothing more than a dim headlamp and the Orion constellation providing illumination.

Now that we’ve heard all about me, it’s time to get back to the subject at hand, which of course is Popular Paranormal. The goal of this blog is to bring to light paranormal themes, hidden and obvious, in popular culture, and understand what they’re all about. Harry Potter may be the most paranormal series of books ever written, but is the Psychomanteum use obvious to everyone else? What about Plato’s Allegory of the Cave, that legendary piece on reality and illusion? Is it possible that the the real lesson to be learned from it is about the Psychomanteum, or as Plato would’ve called it, the Nekromanteion? Was Gilgamesh’s companion Enkidu something more than just a wild man?

These topics and more! Thank you for reading Popular Paranormal, and I hope you enjoy reading as much as I enjoy writing!