Hanover Resident and Medium Moriah Rhame Featured in 'Paranormal Cops' TV Show

Michael Miller for The Prairie Advocate News

Moriah Rhame, a local medium, is currently part of an investigative group featured on the Arts and Entertainment Network’s “Paranormal Cops”, which airs on Tuesday nights from 9:30 P.M. to 10:00 P.M. Central Standard Time.

Rhame has a background as diverse and interesting as the cases she helps solve for the Chicago based group. Growing up in the Wisconsin cities of Fort Atkinson and Fort Washington, she was a combat veteran in the Gulf War, where she worked in the emergency room and post op. She has worked behind the scenes in the television industry, where her duties included writing commercials and newscasts. She’s worked for both political parties, been a fry cook and a photographer. Rhame says she ended up in Hanover after doing some checking on area real estate prices, and found that Hanover’s was much more tolerable that some other area communities’.

She says her ability first manifested itself at the age of six, when she in her bedroom with her sister and she “saw people in the room” and called for her mother, being wide awake the entire time. She continued having such experiences into adulthood.

For the past ten years, Rhame has been a medium, using her ability to “talk to energy that has crossed over”. Rhame says she wants to use her ability to help people, and that she “finds God through people”. She says her work “helps her love people unconditionally”. She says she doesn’t charge people who cannot afford her services,and that if a client doesn’t like what they hear during a reading, she does not expect payment. She states on her blog, “I volunteer 100 percent of the time when I work with police on cases, and all of my work with the Chicago Paranormal Detectives is done for free. When I travel into Chicago I travel 3 hours and pay out of my own pocket gas and hotel. Money is never, ever the reason for what I do...”

Her work has obviously struck a chord with the public; Rhame is booked up until 2012 for in person readings, and a couple months ahead for phone readings.

When asked if she’s able to “turn off” her ability in order to live a normal life, Rhame says there is definitely “an on/off switch”. She remarks that she usually forgets that she’s a medium and that people are often surprised she is as young as she is.

Rhame brings a very unique and defined philosophy to her work. Being a medium helps her “love people so much more” and also to “not take people so seriously”. She says she “feels so blessed” to be able to use her ability and that it’s “the best thing that has ever happened to me”. Asked if her experience makes others feel she has special insights into the afterlife, she says that “whatever I’ve gleaned is just a grain of sand in the ocean”. Rhame feels that she is “always learning every single day” and that she is “a work in progress”.

Skepticism is something that Rhame not only acknowledges, but welcomes and encourages. She says that being a medium requires “a really thick skin”. She realizes that everyone has their own belief system, and says that “whatever you believe with emotion and certainty becomes your reality”.

She says she cannot predict the future, does not give people advice during her readings and that she does cut people off if she feels they are beginning to become too dependent upon their visits to her.

Paranormal Cops

Rhame’s involvement with “Paranormal Cops” originated from her work. After giving a reading to Ron Fabiani, the lead detective on the show, she worked with him on two cases and he told her he’d formed a group to investigate these types of cases. She says that initially the other members of the group weren’t too keen about working with a medium, but she was soon “fully accepted” by the other guys.

Typically the show finds the Chicago based group getting a call from someone in the area who has experienced phenomena they cannot explain, such as strange sights or sounds. The group is then called in to help discover the source of the disturbances, with Rhame providing what impressions and input she can at the scene.

When asked what differentiates this show from the many others currently airing that feature similar subject matter, Rhame says that on “Paranormal Cops” all the members are trained in investigative procedures, including questioning, and how not to contaminate a scene. She says that there is currently no standard for paranormal research and that the detectives’ background in criminal investigation makes the show more credible.

When asked why people should watch her show, Rhame says that so many people have had paranormal experiences, and “Paranormal Cops” allows them to bring these experiences out into the open, without being embarrassed. In this respect, the show seems to be a means of validation for those who have seen,heard or felt things out of the ordinary. While there are spooky moments, including one notable instance where a spirit threatened Rhame with violence, the show has a humanistic, redemptive tone that sets it apart from most of the others of its ilk. An episode that started off as an investigation into strange sights and sounds in a Chicago fire house ended up being more about one man’s grief and need for closure over the death of his father, both of whom had unfinished emotional business with each other.

Rhame calls the show “the most fun I’ve ever had in my life”, and hopes that the show (having now completed its initial run, but still airing in reruns) will be renewed for a second season.

Rhame has also written a book (“How to Be a Happy Medium”), wherein she attempts to help people tap into the potential everyone has to be a medium. She maintains that her ability “is not a gift” and that anyone can do it. She says that the book works best if you have “forgiven yourself” and remarks that “if you are healed, you can heal others”.

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