Subjects of Interest:
May 24, 2025
I’ve written about this before, but I guess I need to say it again. Maybe this time, not louder, just clearer.
For nearly two years, I’ve been reaching out to the paranormal community. Not for fame. Not for clicks. Just to ask for help. I’ve written heartfelt messages to paranormal “investigators,” mediums, and psychics all across the country. I’ve watched their videos. Followed their pages. Bought their books. Bought their merch. I’ve even met many of them in person, hoping maybe, just maybe, they’d look at what I’m doing and care enough to say, “Tell me more. How can I help?”
I wasn’t trying to sell them anything. I wasn’t looking for attention. I was just trying to get them to listen to the lost souls. To read the testimonies. To give them back their names. I thought that’s what we were all here for.
But most of the time, I get nothing. No reply. No questions. No curiosity. Just silence. Or worse, sales pitches.
I share a journal entry where a spirit pleads for their name to be remembered, and the only response I get is a promo code for a team hoodie. I ask if someone can help me verify a detail from a testimony, and they ask if I’ve bought a ticket to their ghost hunt many states away. I ask for advice on how to talk to spirits, and I’m hit up for donations. I thought I was reaching out to allies. I didn’t realize I was walking into a marketplace.
I’ve even offered free copies of my books to help spread the stories of the souls still looking for peace. But in return, I’m hit up for donations. Not for the lost souls. For their projects. I’ve given nearly $3,000 worth of books to them for free, yet they are the ones begging me for money.
They’re too busy filming reaction videos about orbs in haunted houses and clapping back at other paranormal investigators who stole their investigative methods. Too busy livestreaming para-dramas and throwing insults at each other. And somewhere in the middle of all that, real spirits, who need our help, get ignored.
Most of their mission statements say the same thing. “We help those in need.” “We bring peace to the dead.” “We give the paranormal a voice.” That’s what it says on their websites and Facebook pages. But when you actually bring them a case that isn’t convenient, that isn’t marketable, they clam up. Or worse, they redirect. They ask if I’ve joined their Patreon. They ask if I’ve donated to their GofundMe. They ask if I’ve booked a ticket to their next live event. The same people who claim to fight evil spirits vanish the second a real spirit shows up.
So far, out of the 62 I’ve contacted, only one has helped. One. GenX Paranormal Investigations, which has only 22 Facebook likes. But they have helped far more than anyone else, including groups with 100k followers.
The rest? They don’t want Candle Face in their lives. She’s real, and they don’t want what’s real. They want to sell merch. She doesn’t fit the tourist route. She isn’t haunted dolls and voice apps. She’s ancient and angry and real. And she doesn’t sell well on t-shirts.
I’m not saying selling merch is wrong. I sell books. I offer scrolls. But I do it to make up for the $20,000 I’ve spent trying to help the lost souls, to print their names, to ship their stories, to share their voices with people who might care.
What I see from others is merch first, mission maybe. It’s $25 t-shirts while the dead go ignored in the background. The message gets buried under coffee mugs, magazines, and haunted house tickets. When selling merch takes a higher priority than the spirits they claim to serve, it’s time to say goodbye to them.
And yet, I keep trying. That’s on me. I keep thinking the next message will reach someone who cares. I keep hoping that somewhere, buried beneath the merch and egos, there’s someone who really wants to help the lost souls.
But it always comes back to this. I ask for help, and they ask if I’m attending their podcast or if I’m a member of their Patreon. I ask for time to explain what I need, and they ask me to purchase VIP tickets to a paracon. I ask for witnesses, and they ask for subscribers.
This was never supposed to be a business. It was supposed to be about the lost souls who want to be identified. Readers have already identified nine of 45 spirits, mostly from the Austin, TX area, but we still have many to help. And the ones who escaped Candle Face’s lair, the Fugitives, are still hiding. The Remembered are waiting to be read. Waiting for someone to speak their names aloud. That’s why I’m still here.
So maybe I stop knocking on doors that are never going to open.
Maybe I stop waiting for the paranormal community to do something they haven’t done in a long time. Helping without selling something.
My readers have done more than the paranormal “investigators” ever have. They’re the ones spotting patterns. Sharing names. Piecing together who the lost souls were. They’re not asking for tickets or likes. They’re not asking me for donations. They’re just showing up and solving real cold cases.
Maybe that’s who this was always meant for. Not the ghost hunters with gear and branding kits, but the quiet ones who see the truth on my pages, and stay up at night wondering what they missed.
To those who helped, thank you.
To the rest of you?
Keep your merch. I’ve got spirits to help!
This is a complex and deeply personal question. On the one hand, there's the possibility that Candle Face is a manifestation of my childhood trauma, a figure created by my mind to cope with fear and emotional turmoil. On the other hand, the consistent details, physical evidence, and shared experiences with others suggest that Candle Face may be a genuine supernatural entity. Whether Candle Face is real or a creation of my psyche, her impact on my life has been undeniably profound. Ultimately, the answer to this question is up to you.
I don’t consider myself a psychic or medium, although many in the paranormal community believe I have some kind of gift, perhaps one that I haven’t fully tapped into yet. Unlike those who claim to communicate with any spirit, my ability seems limited to connecting with Candle Face’s victims and Candle Face herself. While I’m not sure how this works, the connection is strong and focused on these particular Lost Souls, allowing me to share their stories and seek justice for them.
From October 2023 to around March 2024, I personally wrote the short descriptions you see on Google and social media platforms when my web pages or journal entries are shared or found in search results. These descriptions are those brief, 160-character summaries that pop up beside the URL. It was challenging to condense complex ideas into such a small space.
By March 2024, I began letting Wix, my website host, handle this task for me. Their AI generates these summaries much faster and often with more precision than I could manage within that tight character limit. It was a practical decision to let the system take over this small aspect of my work, allowing me to focus more on my writing and investigations.
The web pages and journal entries themselves are entirely my own. My writing encompasses a wide range of topics, including the testimonies of the Lost Souls, my investigations into Candle Face/Isabel, my books like Isabel: The Forgotten Daughter of La Llorona and The Haunted Handbook, as well as other works and research. Everything I write is rooted in my decades of experience in writing (over ten books in 15 years) and my 30+ years of expertise in intelligence analysis, missing persons cases, and human trafficking investigations. The core content you read always comes from me.
By early March 2025, I decided to create a Shopify account to sell copies of Isabel: The Forgotten Daughter of La Llorona, The Haunted Handbook, and to look for caretakers for The Scrolls of Souls. It was a tremendous amount of work to manually transfer all 130 journal entries from Wix to Shopify and recreate the Google SEO titles and descriptions for each entry. Shopify’s blogging platform also required a summary for each journal entry. Summarizing my work was taking around 30 minutes per entry, which became overwhelming and unsustainable.
To streamline the process, I allowed AI to create the summaries for me by uploading each journal entry and letting the AI generate the SEO descriptions, summaries, and ALT text for images. Here's a clear breakdown of what is AI-generated:
Everything else you read comes from me, whether it’s documenting testimonies from the Lost Souls, researching Candle Face/Isabel, or writing my books. The AI simply handles the tedious, mechanical parts of the process, leaving the writing, storytelling, and investigations entirely in my hands.
I review all AI-generated summaries and descriptions to ensure they accurately represent the essence of my writing. My decision to use AI for these backend tasks is about maintaining efficiency and allowing me to focus on what truly matters: writing, storytelling, investigations, and giving voice to the Lost Souls, protecting the Fugitives, investigating Candle Face/Isabel, and exploring new projects. Your experience as a reader is shaped by my work, not by AI.
I decided to cancel the Candle Face Chronicles Podcast for two key reasons. First, while the Get Haunted Network is a fantastic community for paranormal entertainment, it wasn't the right fit for the serious and important nature of my work with Candle Face Chronicles. The network's lighthearted tone didn’t align with my mission.
Second, the friends and family of one of Candle Face's victims reached out and asked me to stop discussing their loved one on the podcast because it was causing them too much pain. Their request made me realize that my work, while well-intentioned, was unintentionally hurting those who are still living and grieving.
These reasons led me to end the podcast, but I remain committed to continuing my mission to uncover Candle Face’s origins and methods with a renewed focus on compassion and respect for the living.
I have had the branchingplotbooks.com domain since 2012, but I transferred the domain to Shopify to use it as my storefront. I needed to do this because Isabel: The Forgotten Daughter of La Llorona can't be published or sold via Amazon's Kindle Direct Publishing because of its spiral binding requirement. The same goes for The Haunted Handbook.
I decided to sell them, along with most of my other books, on Shopify because it allows me to provide a more streamlined and reliable experience for my readers. It also enables me to have full control over my work and how it reaches my audience. Additionally, all my books are still available on Amazon (paperback and Kindle), except for Isabel: The Forgotten Daughter of La Llorona and The Haunted Handbook due to their unique binding requirements.
I also chose to use Shopify’s blogging platform, keeping all books, my journal, and the shopping experience located in one place.
I plan on keeping www.candleface.com up for the interim, but it will likely go down as well, or at least be redirected to www.branchingplotbooks.com. In the end, I want my work to be more streamlined and easier for the paranormal community and my readers to find my work, read and help the lost souls, protect the fugitives, and care for the Scrolls of Souls.
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