Ethical Standards for the Treatment of the Dead and the Bereaved
At the Institute for Paranormal Analytical Sciences (IPAS), we hold that the dead — as individuals, as histories, and as cultural memory — are not objects of entertainment, experimentation, or spectacle.
Spirit Rights is not a metaphysical claim. It is an ethical framework that protects the dignity of the deceased and the emotional safety of the living.
We affirm that all who have passed deserve to remain unexploited, unprovoked, and uncommodified. Their families, communities, and cultural lineages deserve the same respect.
Core Principles
Respect the Rest of the Dead
The deceased are not research material, narrative devices, or interactive entities. Sites of burial, memorial, and mourning are not portals or tools. We reject practices that disturb or sensationalize the dead.
Reject Performative or Instrumental “Spirit Contact” IPAS does not endorse technologies or rituals that claim to summon, provoke, or communicate with the dead. This includes devices such as spirit boxes, Ouija boards, necromantic rites, and other tools marketed as channels to the afterlife. Our stance is grounded in ethics, not metaphysics.
Honor the Mourning The grief of the living is not a resource to be mined. Investigations, media, and research must never exploit families or communities processing loss.
Reject the Commodification of Death Death is not content. The portrayal of “spirit communication” for entertainment, profit, or social currency violates the dignity of both the deceased and the bereaved.
Why This Matters
Spirit Rights establishes a boundary that the paranormal field has historically lacked: a commitment to ethical restraint, cultural intelligence, and human dignity.
To uphold these rights is to recognize that not all stories are ours to tell, not all histories are ours to handle, and not all silences are ours to break.
© 2026 Institute of Paranormal Analytical Sciences
