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We're located in southeast Pennsylvania. Our members come from all over the Philadelphia area and it's outlying suburbs. We investigate anywhere we feel like, and do not restrict ourselves to any specific areas.
There are a few reasons I chose Hellfire Paranormal for our name.
Technically, hell is not a bad word. It's just not a place people like to talk about going and no, no one likes the idea of burning there. Luckily, that's not our reason for using it. There have been lots of uses of the word "hellfire" both in popular culture and history. The Hellfire Pass is a railway cut in Thailand. T he military has hellfire missiles. Several movies and record albums have used the term. Heck, even Disney has a song called "Hellfire" in the cartoon "The Hunchback of Notre Dame"! There was a train engineer known as Hellfire Jack, and General Sir William Olphert was also called Hellfire Jack.
By definition, hellfire is what God uses to cleanse evil and sin from the world. Hellfire is not evil, and it surely doesn't hold any connection with the dark side of religion, other than punishing those deemed punishable.
Secondly, I like the tie-in to the Hellfire Clubs that were popular in Britain and Ireland in the 18th century, especially the one founded by Sir Francis Dashwood, Lord Wharton. It poked fun of the seriousness of organized religion, and, in general, he threw a lot of parties and had a lot of fun. While in Britain, it's rumored that Benjamin Franklin attended meetings of Dashwood's Hellfire Club. This is a bit of a reminder to me that what we're doing is about having fun and we shouldn't take ourselves too seriously all the time.
And finally, Hellfire Paranormal is just plain catchy. It's easily remembered, and there is zero confusion about who we are in a hobby where almost every group out there has an acronym-ed name ending in either APS or PRS. I've just seen far too many groups with names like CAPS, DAPS, CHAPS, SAPS or like APRS, BPRS....XPRS, YPRS, and so on. To me, these groups are faceless copies of other more successful groups who just happened to make their name shorter by using an acronym.
Generally, we use whatever equipment we deem necessary. This includes cameras, EMF detectors, audio recorders, video recorders, dataloggers that record time, temp, barometric pressure and humidity.
We typically stick to electronic equipment, but you will see some of the metaphysical items like pendulums or dowsing rods occasionally. We do not do séances though, and you will not see items meant specifically for "communicating" with spirits like Ouija boards.
FAQ