Halloween Revisited -- ESPecially Yours

It's the weekend, so time for more reruns. This post originally appeared on October 29th, 2018.

I've enhanced this post a little as finally tracked down the Real People episode where Gordon Hoener appears.

 I'm a sucker for paranormal shows. Ghosts, UFO's, Bigfoot, Chupacabras, you name it, I'm in, especially this time of year.  I'm sure it dates back to my childhood spent watching Leonard Nimoy's "In Search Of...", Jack Palance's "Believe It or Not!" and Robert Stack's "Unsolved Mysteries". Back then, I fell for everything hook, line and Gellar. I like to believe I'm a little more skeptical these days, but reality aside, it's just fun to believe something undiscovered still exists.

Gordon Hoener did too. So much so that he started St. Louis' first "Ghost Busters" group "Haunt Hunters" in 1965.  This brochure I found oddly blends his two passions: Investments and the paranormal; in this case ESP. 

The brochure details experiments which can be conducted with a group of people to determine their extrasensory perception.

Hoener was a stockbroker by day, magician by night, when he began Haunt Hunters as a "central clearing house for spirit information from around the world".

In 1978, Hoener, along with his partner Phil Goodwilling, wrote the book "The Haunt Hunters Handbook for Psychic Investigators".  Hoener believed it was this book that served as inspiration to local Washington University alumnus Harold Ramis when he wrote "Ghostbusters".

Coincidentally (or maybe not), Hoener and Goodwilling had visited the famously haunted Whittemore House, which serves as Washington University's Faculty Club, in 1972 where they performed a séance that ended in their fleeing, not unlike Ramis' Ghostbusters when they visit the New York Public Library on their first mission.

Hoener in undated photo

According to the book "Haunted Houses USA", Hoener visisted another local haunted landmark, Lemp Mansion, in 1979 accompanied by producers from the TV show "Real People".  If the event made it into the show, I've not been able to find it in the past episodes currently available on Amazon Prime.

***UPDATE***
I've found the episode.  Enjoy.

Hoener passed away in June, 2016, less than a month before the premiere of the all-female "Ghostbusters" reboot.  Ramis passed away in 2014 at the age of 69.  Maybe he and Gordon are on the other side having a good laugh.

You can watch an interview with Gordon's son Steve shortly after Gordon's passing here.