Loyd Auerback is a parapsychologist, paranormal investigator, and mentalist. He has appeared on numerous television shows that profile ghost hunting and other paranormal topics. He develops and teaches online courses on parapsychology. He is the author of several books on ghost hunting, parapsychology, and other paranormal subjects as well as co-author of the Raney/Day Investigation novels. He was a columnist for Fate magazine. As a mentalist, he performs under the name Professor Paranormal. He is also a chocolatier offering chocolate tasting classes and products through his website Haunted By Chocolate. Early life and education Loyd Auerbach is the son of Barbara Auerbach and Richard “Dick” Auerbach, the latter a longtime producer and executive at NBC Sports and independent producer of the Rose Bowl Game and Tournament of Roses Parade. Auerbach has had an interest in the paranormal and psychic phenomena from an early age. Growing up, he watched The Twilight Zone and One Step Beyond television shows and held séances. Auerbach helped start a parapsychology club at his high school and did an informal internship with a parapsychologist who lived close to him in Westchester County, NY before moving to California. Auerbach believes in the parapsychological world because he has experienced what he says are two out-of-body experiences in which he dreamed he was in another place and his image was seen in that place by friends. Auerbach graduated from Northwestern University in 1978 with a degree in Cultural Anthropology and earned a Master’s Degree in Parapsychology from the former John F. Kennedy University (now National University (California)). Career Parapsychology Loyd Auerbach was on the Core Faculty of the Graduate Parapsychology Program at John F. Kennedy University where he received a Master's Degree in parapsychology. While on the faculty, he served as the Public Information and Media Consultant to the American Society for Psychical Research (1982-83) working as a consultant on psychic matters and conducting investigations into paranormal occurrences. Auerbach says he gained attention in 1984 due to the popularity of the 1984 film Ghostbusters. Auerbach has been the owner and director of the Office of Paranormal Investigations since 1989, investigating ghost sightings, demon possessions, hauntings and other unexplained phenomena. According to Auerbach, ghosts fall under three categories: poltergeists, which he has explained as the energy of a living person causing things to move, apparitions, which are believed to be the spirits of the deceased, and hauntings, which he has