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Jill Stefko PhD - Renaissance Studio

Jill Stefko PhD is the Topic Editor for Paranormal, Feature Writer and former Feature for Paganism/Wicca.

She has studied the paranormal since 1957, when, as a child, she bought her first parapsychology book, The Unknown Guest. In fall, 1965, she conducted her first investigation. Jill gives workshops and lectures, writes for selected Internet web sites and been a guest on radio call-in talk shows and local TV, as an expert in the paranormal. Each semester, Bill White's Journalism class at Lehigh University, as a part of their grades, interviews Jill about the paranormal and psychicism. She has given lectures to a psychology class at Lehigh Carbon Community College. Mental health professionals consult with Jill for advice about poltergeists, ESP and other parapsychological phenomena that their clients have experienced.

Jill's expertise in the paranormal includes parapsychology, cryptozoology, Fortean phenomena, anomalies, UFOs, earthbound spirit releasement, attachment, possession and depossession, aliens and demonic possession and exorcism which some consider a religious subject. Jill spoke to Father Alphonsus Trabold, the exorcist whom the Scranton Diocese asked to investigate the Smurl case, the subject of A "Haunting" in Pennsylvania. She spoke to then, President of the American Society for Psychical Research, highly respected parapsychologist Dr. Karlis Osis about paranormal activity in her mother’s bedroom which she wrote about for Suite 101 in 2005: Investigation: A “Haunting” in Historic Bethlehem, Pennsylvania

JShe investigates cases of alleged psi, tests people for ESP, telepathy and psychokinesis, PK, the ability of the mind to affect matter. She created, hosted and served as a paranormal expert for walking ghost tours of a city’s historic district with the local tourism authority until the decision was made to dismember the organization.

Professional Affiliations:

• Director and founding member: FIRE-Psi, the Foundation for the Research, Investigation and Education of Psychic Phenomena, a parapsychological organization, founded in 1996. Mission: Adhere to scientific criteria when investigating, researching, educating and counseling experients, debunking frauds and alleviating fear of the unknown.
• Member Parapsychology Foundation’s Psychic Explorers Club http://www.psychicexplorers.org/index.html. The international organization co-founded by Eileen Garrett, is highly respected and one of the premier organizations of its type. The club is a forum for its members.
• Member: IONS, the Institute of Noetic Sciences. http://www.noetic.org/, founded by former astronaut, Edgar Mitchell to scientifically research the potentials and powers of consciousness, including perceptions, beliefs, and intuition.
• Associate member: CSICOP, http://www.csicop.org/. The Committee for Skeptical Inquiry supports critical scientific investigation of claims involving extraordinary human experiences
• Member: Board of Directors for Pennsylvania based nonprofit corporation, North Penn Legal Services, advocates for legal rights. http://www.northpennlegal.org/ She is on the audit & finance, by-law and recruitment committees. NPLS provides free legal services to low income people who cannot afford a lawyer for civil issues that don’t involve monetary gain.

Education: PhD Counseling - Thesis theme: the interrelationship between the psychological and the psychic and how to treat the experients. Master’s Metaphysics. Thesis theme: the influence of Western European Shamanism on orthodox religion. BS Psychology major, sociology minor. Reiki Master. LLB. Certified Mediator.

Jill is a Shamanistic practitioner, Reiki Master and retired mental health counselor. She has expertise in PowWow, the magickal art of the Pennsylvania Dutch, designs hex signs and gives lectures about the Dutch and hexology. Her great-grandfather was a PowWow doctor who practiced the art of healing. She has studied traditional Western astrology since 1968; traditional Tarot since 1979.

During her career as a counselor, Jill gained in depth knowledge of personality and anxiety disorders and Dissociative Identity Disorder, formerly Multiple Personality Disorder. Most of her clients were targets of people with psychiatric disorders. She gives talks, as a volunteer, to various groups, including mental health organizations, about her areas of expertise in psychology which can be used for mental health professionals' continuing education credits. Shel has advised law enforcement officers in various aspects of crimes.

Her passions, other than the paranormal, are animals - their psychology, behavior, communication and symbolism, mysteries of history, advocacy, law, forensic psychology, horror movies and cooking, especially creating new recipes. She taught horseback riding and trained horses for Naval Air Station Oceana, Virginia’s stables.

Jill, happily, shares her home with three feline family members, two of whom were abused cats she adopted from an animal shelter.