Steven LaChance Blog

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the fact that I’ve been doing this work for twenty-five years now.

That number landed on me in a way I didn’t expect. Not as a milestone. Not as something to celebrate. Just as a quiet realization that a large part of my life has been spent sitting with things most people would rather turn away from.

I didn’t set out to build a career. I didn’t set out to be part of the paranormal. In fact, in many ways, I never completely fit into it. What I do and how I research often differ from the norm. I have never set out to prove anything. None of this began with ambition or curiosity, as people sometimes assume. It began because something happened to me and my family that changed us in permanent ways, and I needed to understand it just enough to get us through it. Survival came first. Meaning came later.

Over time, people started finding me. At first, quietly. Then more steadily. They came with stories they didn’t know how to tell without feeling exposed, embarrassed, or afraid of being dismissed. Houses they couldn’t stay in. Experiences that followed them long after they moved on. I listened because I recognized that look in their eyes. I had worn it myself.

What twenty-five years has taught me is that most hauntings aren’t really about ghosts. They’re about people. They’re about memory and trauma, and how a certain house or place can hold on to what happens inside of them. They’re about what it costs to live inside something that doesn’t feel safe anymore, and how long that cost can follow you after you leave.

I’ve also learned to be careful. These stories don’t belong to me, even when I’m the one telling them. They belong to the people who lived them. That responsibility has never felt light, and it’s why I’ve always resisted spectacle or shortcuts. Once you’ve seen what these experiences do to families, you don’t treat them casually.

I don’t talk about this often, but I’m deeply grateful. Grateful to the people who trusted me with their lives and their fears. Grateful for the lessons, even the ones that came at a personal cost. Grateful that this work taught me compassion instead of hardening me, and listening instead of certainty.

This next book, Architecture of Shadows, comes from that place. Not as an answer. Not as a conclusion. Just as a genuine laying out of what I’ve learned so far, and what I’m still trying to understand. It pulls no punches and doesn’t shy away from the harder aspects of my experiences and what I have learned.

Thank you for being here with me for as long as you have. For listening. For trusting the quieter way of telling these stories. And for allowing me to keep doing this work, the only way I know how to do it.