You got a pointmaybe have a nuetral person either investigate the history ehile you go over what you gathered or do as you say have a person whos qualified evaluate the place take there own readings and get a feel for the place. give a general time frame for construction but no ideas to let the subconscious run rampart. If you tell them theres possible evil they willmake something out of nothing.even the most seasoned can get fumbled with the knowing of others personal experience.I mean dont let your team jump into a demonic situation blind because the outcomes would be like sending some soldiers into an ambush and say well I didnt want to ruin it for you.If the place has banging pipes and hazardous things you have totell them but dont ruin the experience when you say all this activity and it ends up being vermon in the walls or bats in the attic.Get your baseline tests maybe say hey the base emf is 1 with the lights on or off maybe go so far as to rule out all man made things then leave then rest for them to go in blind.If its dangerous tell them it but dont let the bio dictate the investigation.

That's not how you do it?  We don't completely exclude the intake person but she shares with no one.  The team goes in knowing the first names of the clients and the address and time we're supposed to show up.  The intake coordinator on the team arrives roughly an hour before we do to re-interview the client, find out where most of the activity takes place, take some base readings, etc.  When the rest of us show up she herds the clients into a room (say, the dining room or the living room) and makes smalltalk while the rest of us walk through and do our impressions and decide where is a likely place to set up. 

We find out what the clients have experienced between the impressions and the vigil portion of our investigations.  We have a sit-down and tell them what we think is probably there and the intake coordinator then tells us what the clients have told her and we make a decision, based on all information available, where to set up shop to try to gather evidence and hash out a game plan at that time.

I think that the team should walk in blind... especially the sensitives on the team.  I'm surprised that's not the way everyone does it.

I think knowing the details before hand isn't always a good idea.

yes I agree that has been done that way for a long time but ya know I slipped out of that due to time for me got to get back into that again thanks for the reminder lmao

To get a fair investigation one needs to remove the pre-knowledge of the place, other than maybe the name of the place that the investigationers will be investigating...

I've been doing that for years. Going in cold is always better as far as I am concerned. As I see it, things can only get hotter that way. Getting too much info at the start also tends to cause some people to only look for what they have learned in researching the place. That limits them tremendously. I won't go as far as to say there is a correct or wrong way. If there were an undisputed correct way then we would have more evidence than we do today. I also (as those who know me can tell you) don't follow the norm or what you see everyone else do. My big thing on an investigation is "WHY". I already know something is happening (or I wouldn't be there) so I don't need to look as hard for the what as I do for they why.

I have talked to a couple people on GHI in the past and there is a lot of pressure from producers/directors to make things interesting also. GHI for me is all about the locations rather than the "investigation". But, I do think if you watch Barry on GHI a little closer, you will see he has a little more on the ball than the others do.

But that is just my take. Everyone has to follow their own path.