So, we know people die. Now what?
This chapter is about ghosts and ghostbusting. I could write a whole book just on this subject, but the purpose of this chapter is to give you a general working knowledge of how to deal with spirits or ghosts (or whatever you want to call them).
When I say ghostbusting, I mean when we or I go to a place that people claim is haunted. We identify the ghosts, if any, and we either help them cross over to the other side or we just make sure they don’t stay there.
I’m going to assume that most people reading this have some understanding of the possibility that there are ghosts. Unless you’ve lived under a rock the last fifty years, I don’t see how you couldn’t believe at least a little.
With all the videos, the sound recordings, the eyewitnesses, and the testimonials of non-psychic people, you’d really have to have one closed-minded dolt to not at least entertain the fact that there might be ghosts.
Don’t get me wrong, I love denial. I’ve got a place on the River Denial myself, but come on! Really? You still think thirty-five million people are just making this stuff up?
I’m also going to also assume you’re not a complete idiot. If you have an open mind, even if it’s a razor-thin open mind, I can work with you.
Let’s start with the basics.
It is my belief that when you die, your soul leaves your body. I’ve actually seen souls leave their bodies when a person dies, which is why I believe that.
Now in most cases, that soul goes to the other side. Some say heaven, some say hell, you never hear Cleveland, but who’s to say.
As I explained in the last chapter, I know that most go someplace. People with more depth than me seem to know the answer to that, I’m just going with what I know.
But some don’t go anywhere. They stay earthbound and they do so for a variety of reasons. Some are afraid to go to wherever, some feel guilt, some feel compelled to stay for unfinished business—a murder, an accidental suicide, a loved one they can’t leave behind. Something prevents them from crossing over to the light.
So these souls are just here, floating around, confused, angry, sad, generally not in the best place. I don’t think I’ve ever run across an earthbound spirit that was happy as hell to be hanging around. Not saying it’s not possible, just saying I’ve never come across one. But I’ve come across plenty who were pissed that they were dead.
And these souls don’t have a lot of people to talk to, there’s not a lot to do. They have the occasional psychic they can bug, but psychics are about as fun as sitting in the teachers’ lounge. They’re harder to scare. So they hang around houses that are familiar, families they might know, places they liked to hang out in—bars, theatres, parks. Any places where the living like to hang out.
You want to know where ghosts don’t hang out? Cemeteries! Cemeteries are one of the quietest places on earth to be, as far as ghostly activity. The old-time psychics used to picnic in cemeteries because they were so peaceful. Sure, the occasional ghost will stop by to see their headstone or watch a visitor, but after that it’s Sizzler, here we come.
The problem is that when these ghosts get bored, when they want attention, or when you do construction at your house or business, they get bugged. They get bugged by change, by boredom, and by limitations, so they move things, play with the lights, scare the pets, create smells, anything to get a rise from the people around them or show their discontent.
Following me so far?
Most people who have never experienced a ghost encounter freak out when they notice something like that. They build it up to be demonic or evil. They assume from the movies they’ve seen or the stories they’ve heard that these ghosts are going to enter their bodies, turn them into zombies, eat their kid’s brains, and make them write bad checks. This fear only makes things worse, because now the ghosts are getting what they want.
This is where I come in.
People call me or other busters and tell us their story. In my case, I refer most of the calls I get to people who actually care. That sounds terrible, I know, but unless the walls are bleeding or your cat’s floating above your kitchen table, I get a little bored. And the last thing these people need is a bored ghostbuster.
They’re scared, alone, and embarrassed. When they call, most of them will apologize for having these issues. It’s almost like they feel unclean or soiled because of what’s happening. And most think they’re going crazy.
Why am I not more sympathetic if I know these people are hurting? Because I’m a dick.
Ninety percent of the calls I get are simple, run-of-the-mill ghostbusting jobs. You go in, identify the ghost, talk to it, find out why it’s there, and send it on its way. When I say send it on its way, I mean into the light. There’s always a light or an exit they can take if they want to, and most of the time they do.
It becomes a counseling session more than anything. Why haven’t they left? Are they angry? What are they angry about? Are they scared? What happened to frighten them? Does somebody in the house bother them? What do they do to bother them? On and on.
A majority of these conversations take place in the dark, in the attic, in the basement, or in some weird crawl space.
From the outsider it probably looks strange, but from my point of view it’s pretty boring stuff.
They do try to test you, blow in your face, make noises, pull your hair. But once you establish that you’re there to get them to leave and not to play games, the drama dies down and you can do your thing.
Keep in mind, ghosts have no right to be here. They’re dead. Their lives are over; like it or not, they need to move on. It doesn’t matter if they don’t like the new wall or the new boyfriend. They have to go. They have no power over you. In fact it’s just the opposite. You have all the power. If more people knew this, they wouldn’t need ghostbusters; they would simply take care of it themselves. And they can! I don’t have special powers! I’ve just done it a million times.
Imagine you have some weird guy walk in your house and stand there. Maybe he turns the light on and off or moves the remote when you’re watching TV. What if he blew in your ear right at the good part of the show? You wouldn’t jump up on the furniture and scream, or grab a cross and wave it around. And I’m pretty sure you wouldn’t run out of the house with your arms above your head, screaming “auntie em! auntie em!” No, you’d kick him out.
Take the fear out, and remember that they have no right to be there. Talk to the ghost if you want, but don’t put up with their crap. You didn’t die! They did. Demand that they leave.
The tough ones are when the people who are living get too close to the ghost that’s haunting them. They try to make friends, make them their pet, or worse, get emotionally and physically involved with the spirit. When that happens, it’s a whole different deal. Now you need their help in getting rid of the spirit.
When I teach ghostbusting classes, I put my students in the scariest room of the scariest haunted house I can find and have then perform a séance. You would never do that in an actual ghostbusting job, because it’s stupid. It’s like a Ouija board on steroids.
But for ghostbusting school it helps the students face their fears and empowers them. After a night or two of that, they can go anywhere.
That’s what you want: an empowered ghostbuster, not some dipstick puffing out his chest, screaming “Show yourself! I’m not afraid of you!!”
That’s embarrassing.
The number one rule in ghostbusting is to always walk in with protection. As I’ve said before, protection is picturing yourself surrounded by white light.
The reason why this is important is twofold. First, when you walk into a house that feels heavy, dark, and negative, if you feel the light around you, it changes the mood of the house. It gives the sense that you’re there to get the job done, not to stir things up.
Second, the spirits can’t get to you. You’re protected. This means less activity and less chance of things getting out of hand.
Another important part of dealing with a ghost is being unafraid. You’re always going to be a little nervous; some people get nervous watching SpongeBob SquarePants. But I’m talking about confidence in what you’re doing and your ability to handle it.
I’ve been on a few jobs where a priest or shaman has run out because it tested their faith. Spirits will do that, especially dark ones. They will go to the place you feel the most vulnerable and try to exploit it. You don’t let that happen; you walk in knowing you belong there and they don’t.
The first fifty ghostbustings can be spooky: the people are scared, they tell spooky stories, if you’ve got some guy playing the organ in the background, it makes you nervous.
The next fifty, it becomes routine. You stop being nervous and you concentrate more on the task at hand.
For me there are three parts to a ghostbusting.
The first part is the story. You go in, sit down, and the person who called or is affected by it tells you the story—when it began, what happens, when it happens, who is affected. The story is important because finally the people involved have someone who will listen to them and not freak out. It also helps to gauge how many and how strong the entities are. If the lights are just going on and off, or you feel a chill in a room or two, you know your night won’t be that tough. If pets are being thrown around and walls are oozing dark red liquids, you know it’s going to be a long night.
Once you hear the story, you move on to phase two: the exploration phase.
In this phase, you go through the house and see for yourself, what, if any, ghosts, cold spots, or places with creepy vibes there are. You also find out which room is ground zero, the place with the most activity.
After phase two, you meet in a neutral spot—somewhere there hasn’t been any real activity—and come up with a game plan. You discuss what you saw, what you felt, your concerns, your questions. You come up with where you want to start and a rough plan for what you’re going to do.
You tell the host your plans, find out if they have any objections, and move on to phase three, the actual busting.
Can you start to see how after one hundred of these jobs you might get bored?
In phase three, you always start at the worst place in the house, the place where most of the negative energy is. You do this for a couple of reasons. In the beginning, your energy is stronger. You’re fresher.
Some ghosts have the ability to take energy from you. They tap into your light and suck it out to make themselves stronger. If you put protection around yourself, that’s less likely to happen. Again, when I say protection, I mean visualizing a white light around you—God’s light. Still, the longer you’re at the job, the more tired you become. So always start at the strongest point.
The second reason you start there is because if you go right to the place where the entities hang out, they know you’re not afraid of them. That’s important. You want to establish that you’re not there to play games or show how tough you are. Your job is to get rid of whatever is there so the living people can relax.
Ghostbusting isn’t glamorous. It’s a lot of long, tedious conversations with people, living and dead, and at the end of the night, there’s no guarantee that all your time spent had any effect.
That’s why, on most ghostbusting jobs, the beginning part is always the best part. There’s a little drama, a little anticipation. Things are more apt to happen in the beginning, when the spirits are testing your resolve.
Instead of telling you spooky ghost stories, I want to show you examples of situations that come up when you do a job.
I’ve taught classes with a lot of people in them and I’ve taught classes with smaller groups.
In each class, I try to bring the people to actual ghostbustings. Have them experience what it’s like to actually deal with a ghost.
Two of my favorite people to work with were my friends Therese and Paul.
I first met Therese several years ago when she called me about a possible ghost at her son’s house in St. Paul. It sounded like a pretty simple job, bumps in the night, shadows here and there. But another student needed experience, so I agreed and went, along with my student. I met Therese and her husband at their son’s house.
Right when I pulled up I saw a female spirit looking at me from the bedroom window. She looked more nervous than angry, so I knew the job would be fast.
Introductions were made and we went through the house. My student, Bob, talked to Therese and her husband while I took care of the spirit.
As I suspected, she wasn’t there to haunt anybody, she was just lost. Ian, Therese’s son, has that light that spirits love. A lot of folks have it, but don’t know it or know what to do with it.
The job itself took about ten minutes, but it’s always the questions from the living that take the most time.
I liked Therese right off the bat. She was about 5'2" with the energy of a hummingbird on crack. Her husband was the more laid-back of the two, and not really a believer. Still, they were both happy we came and the problem was fixed.
A couple of months later I got another call from Therese, following up on the job we did. It turned out that she and her husband lived about a mile down the road from me. I didn’t take payment for the job and she felt bad. She offered me Twins tickets and said that if I was interested, she’d leave them on her door.
That was the extent of our relationship for a couple of years. She’d call when she had extra tickets and leave them outside her door, until one day she asked if I could give her a reading.
We did the reading. During it, we talked about a lot of things, one of them being her interest in psychics and ghostbusting.
I told her if one came up she could come along. Sure enough, shortly after we talked, one did.
I got a call from a lady who lived about forty-five minutes from where I lived.
She said there had been a lot of activity at her house and it was hard for her to be there when her husband was away.
The thought of driving all the way out there so this lady could sleep didn’t exactly pull my toffee. In fact, I think at first I turned her down. But several calls later her urgency seemed to be getting stronger, and I agreed to come out.
I asked Therese if she’d like to come along, and she was into it.
By the time we got there, I was pissed. It was waaay out there and I knew this job was going to be stupid. I pulled into the driveway and as I did, a monster black truck pulled in behind me.
I gathered my ghostbusting stuff and started to walk toward the house. From behind me, I heard an angry man asking me who the fuck I was. I turned around, and there walking toward me was this muscle-bound bald guy, clearly upset, and wearing a gun.
I returned his question with a question of my own, “Who the fuck are you?” I asked. I really didn’t know who he was or why he was so pissed.
But that made him even more pissed. “I live here, pretty boy. Why are you here?” he asked. This guy looked nuts, and he didn’t seem like the kind of guy you fucked around with. His eyes were dark and intense. He looked right at me, like he was figuring out where he was going to hit me first.
I thought it best I ease up on being a dick and go with the truth.
“Your wife called me. She said you’ve got a ghost problem, that’s why we are here,” I told him. Now his attention went to his wife, Shirley.
“God damn it, Shirley, why is this fucking pretty boy in my driveway?” he said as he brushed by me. I looked at Therese, but she seemed just as dumbfounded as I was. “Wait here,” she said, and proceeded to go toward the house. I followed.
I could hear the man and his wife arguing over why I was there. She agreed that she did call me, but insisted I needed to be there. Her husband (Paul) didn’t want me anywhere near the property, let alone near him. I think his exact words were, “Keep that fucker away from me.”
If the place hadn’t been so far away, I would have said “screw this” and left. But no way was I going to drive all the way back after driving all that way to get there. Besides, if my being there was going to piss this guy off even more, I’d stay all night.
Shirley met us at the entry. She looked embarrassed. “Please don’t worry about my husband, Paul. I don’t know what he’s so upset about, but it might be best if you stayed away from him.”
Introductions were made and the tensions died down. I assured her I would stay away from her husband.
We went to the kitchen area and a group of women were gathered around the kitchen table. “Oh,” she said, “I was going to ask if you mind giving a few readings.”
Normally this would bug me. I don’t like to mix the two things together. It’s like dancing on a newly waxed floor. If I’m ghostbusting I like to let things settle for a bit. If I do readings before I get rid of the ghost, the ghost likes to throw their two cents in and it gets confusing.
And after a ghostbusting, I’m just too tired.
But the thought occurred to me that I could kill a couple of birds with one stone—maybe even three birds.
I could have Therese get the story with Paul. Therese got along with everybody. He wouldn’t yell at her and she could find out why he hated me so much.
I could also make little money. I wasn’t planning on charging these guys, even though it was on the other side of the world. When Shirley called, she said she’d had other ghostbusters out there, but they didn’t do the job. She said they all charged her.
She wanted to know how much I charged.
I couldn’t take her money under those circumstances. The assholes who charged her and didn’t take care of the job should’ve given her the money back. I couldn’t take her dough for the ghostbustings.
But I could charge for readings, maybe even enough to take a flight back.
I told Therese the plan and she agreed to talk to Paul. I put on my psychic cap and we started our night.
I started doing readings. One by one, the people wanting readings piled into a little den off of the kitchen. It was hard to work with all the ghosts in the house, especially because they kept asking me to talk to Paul. But I valued my life. I wasn’t going near Paul.
In between readings, Therese would come in and give me updates on Paul.
“Boy, he sure doesn’t like you,” was her first report, and with each following report it only got worse. By the third reading, she told me he wanted to kill me.
Now it was almost impossible to concentrate on the readings because the ghosts were insistent that I talk to Paul, and Therese was ready to call in SWAT.
By this time, Paul was sitting in the living room watching the Wild play hockey. They were losing, which wasn’t helping his mood.
I decided to confront the situation. I’ve always been a huge fan of sticking my hand in the meat grinder, and there was a big one in the living room.
I walked up behind him. Without turning around, he told me to get the fuck away from him. I asked him, “Why do you suppose you’re having such a negative reaction to me? We don’t even know each other.”
I asked him to come and talk to me.
He said no.
Then I put my hands on his bald, mean head. “What the fuck are you doing?” he asked, and then he began to sweat like he was taking a shower.
“Just come on and talk to me,” I said, “just for a second.”
I think he was so confused by the sweat that he figured fuck it, why not.
We went into the room where I was doing readings and we began to talk. At first, he repeated his disdain for me. Therese asked him why and he couldn’t think of an answer. “I just do,” he said, so I moved on.
I asked him why all these ghosts wanted me to talk to him. He didn’t know that either. I tried the hand to his head thing again, and again he started to sweat.
The hand to the head thing is a grounding technique Birdie had taught me years before. When a person feels “gone” or “drifting” you’re supposed to grab the person’s hand or head.
Paul’s mitts were too close to his massive arms to try to attempt that, so the shiny dome seemed the best option.
He seemed shocked at the sweat that was pouring from his head. I was a little surprised myself, and Therese was downright owl-eyed.
But the more he sweat, the less angry he became and the more talkative he was.
Turns out Paul was a cop. The ghosts in the house were all about him. They wanted him to use his psychic abilities. He had experiences when he was a kid, but now, at this time in his life, they needed him to see it and use it.
We went through the house. All the activity was coming from Paul’s bedroom or spare room, where he would sleep when he got in late.
He also showed me where a couple of idiot ghostbusters came in and drew Celtic symbols on the wall with this permanent, invisible marker, as a way of warding off ghosts. No wonder he hated me; he probably thought I was going to charge him four hundred bucks to chant.
By the end of the night, we had become friends. We agreed to talk again, and a week later we contacted each other. He wanted to know more; the door was open and he was ready to walk through.
So was Therese. Maybe not as much as Paul, but she was very curious about it all. And besides, those two got along like peas and carrots.
I agreed to teach them both the ins and outs of the ghostbusting world, and off we went.
When it came to rule number one, Paul and Therese both got a D-minus in that part of class.
Paul’s attitude was more “Fuck it, I’m going in,” while Therese’s attitude was “Crap, I left the iron on.”
They both had psychic abilities, but they both struggled with how to deal with them.
Therese would get feelings about people she knew and places she’d been to. She also was really good with business ideas, knowing the things that were going to be big in a year or two. Problem was that she doubted herself. Even though she could see the ideas she had a year ago were now the next big thing, she didn’t trust herself enough to act on them when she first had the feeling. Like she said, she would have been a millionaire if she had just trusted herself on one of the ideas that she got.
Therese has a son who bought a house not far from my house. The plan was to completely gut the house and modernize it to resell.
One night when Therese was at the house alone, she felt a presence before she even went in. She called me and asked me if I’d come over. I said I would, and within five minutes I was there.
Therese had a worried look on her face. This wasn’t alarming, Therese was known to be a bit jumpy. In fact, that was one of the reasons I liked her. If there was the slightest activity, Therese would feel it immediately. Basically my human version of a canary in a coal mine.
The house itself was under construction—torn out walls, exposed wiring and staircases, ripped up flooring, a complete remodel. There was no electricity, so we had to be careful where we walked. We used our phones to light the way.
As we walked in the house, I could tell right away that the place was active. A whirlwind of activity was blowing through the house, as if a mini tornado was in the room.
A man directly in front of me was giving me the stink eye, and I could smell the whiskey on his breath. He didn’t want us there. As I looked around further, I saw a woman in the corner and a little girl with a cat in the living room. The air was thick, heavy. It was hard to breathe.
I looked over at Therese. She was visibly uncomfortable. She asked how a cat got into the house. I reminded her that it wasn’t alive. It was time to leave.
I was surprised by how bad this place was. I didn’t want to alarm Therese, but those spirits were angry. If I had to actually bust this house, it would take all night.
As we left, she confessed to feeling ill. I asked her if she had put protection around herself and she looked dumbfounded.
Prior to me going to the house, Paul and Therese had come to my house every week to discuss ghostbusting. And every week we discussed putting protection over yourself.
If you go in unprotected, it’s very common to feel queasy when there are a lot of spirits around, especially if they have ill will toward you.
The good news was that this was a perfect place to teach Therese and Paul.
My experience teaching them brought up some good advice that might be beneficial to other new ghostbusters.
#1: Always Have a Buddy When You Ghostbust!
A couple days later, all three of us went back to the house. Again, when we walked into the house, it was full of activity. I asked Therese (whose nickname from Paul was Minnie) if she’d protected herself, and she said she had. But with Therese, you never really knew. She could have forgotten and just didn’t want me to yell at her, so she probably did it right after I asked.
Paul, on the other hand, was more of a commando kind of guy. When I asked him if he put protection around himself, he shouted, “Fuck that, let’s go.”
So we went in.
Another drawback to not protecting yourself is that it attracts other spirits to come in. Just like turning on the porch light brings in bugs. But for the purposes of teaching, I let it go. Besides, Paul was the kind of guy you had to show things, not tell.
In the two days since I was there, there was clearly more construction going on. And there was also more activity.
The place felt darker, like the party was getting bigger.
Now there were open walls and scaffolding. They managed to have one light in the house, but otherwise it was completely dark.
Whiskey-a-go-go, the drunk, angry guy I saw when I first went in with Therese, was waiting for us at the door, still angry.
The feeling in the house was like we were intruding. A strong pressure was in the air. I decided to be more of a tour guide rather than a ghostbuster. I wanted Therese and Paul to be exposed to as much as they could handle. I wanted them to trust what they saw and felt. This wasn’t a normal, run-of-the-mill haunted house. This place was bad.
Therese was our ghost detector. Every time she would see someone or something, she would gasp. Naturally we would both turn our attention to what she saw, but this can be a tad unnerving, in the dark, in a haunted house, with nails sticking up everywhere.
But again, for the purposes of what I wanted them to learn, it was good.
Paul had a harder time with her gasping. Every time she’d yelp, Paul would yell, “Jesus Christ, Minnie, stop gasping!”
We decided to tackle the upstairs first. There was a heavy, angry feeling coming from the upstairs bedroom, and we always start at the place that feels the worst.
The house itself had a dangerous feel to it. You never knew if you were going to trip on something or fall through something. Add the element of all the activity, ghost-wise, and it had you on edge.
We made our way up the exposed winding stairway, using our phones for light. We probably should have brought flashlights, but I never liked that visual. A flashlight has a more direct beam. You shine your light around a room and then all of a sudden you see this pale, dark-eyed dead girl standing there, staring at you. Reminded me of when I was young.
We got to the bedroom and sure enough, it was bad.
In the beginning, Therese didn’t truly trust herself. Instead of saying “There’s a ghost,” she would ask, “Is that a ghost?” One or both of us would confirm it or deny if we didn’t see one. But when Therese kept asking, “Is that a ghost, is that a ghost?” we couldn’t keep up with how many were in the room.
There were spirits in the bedroom, spirits in the bathroom. Paul was being hit by nails and debris. We could hear people talking, whispering.
Therese must have protected herself, because so far she wasn’t sick. Paul, on the other hand, was getting dizzy.
I decided to take them out of the upstairs and bring them to the basement. It was getting to be too much upstairs, and I was stuck. I didn’t want to get rid of any of the ghosts that were around, but I think they sensed that, because things were really heating up.
I thought the basement might be a little break from the heaviness upstairs.
Basements are generally creepy. People don’t always live in the basement, and because there isn’t a life force energy there, the dead feel bigger.
Still, it felt like it would be a normal creepy, not this “you’re going to die any second” creepy we were all feeling.
As I was walking toward the top of the stairs, I made a sarcastic remark about coming back to deal with the assholes in the bedroom. Then I felt a push on my back. Not a strong one, like I have in the past, but just enough to throw me off balance. And with no hand railings, I could have fallen. But Paul grabbed my waist and stopped me. It happened so quick; if he didn’t have such fast reflexes, I would have broken my neck. That’s why you always need a buddy.
#2: Avoid Wearing Buttoned Shirts or Zippers
After thanking Paul, we made our way downstairs to the basement.
When we got there, it was a different vibe—more rambunctious, mischievous. It didn’t feel evil, like the one upstairs did.
Still, it was unnerving.
The basement was set up like a big rectangle. As you came down the stairs, across the room was a utility room with a washer and dryer. To the left was a big window. The room was filled with all the tools the construction workers were using. This made walking freely difficult.
There was someone close to the utility room. Therese noticed it first. It was a dark cloud-looking thing with no face or movement. When she asked if that was a ghost, Paul told her to shut up. Then Therese told him to shut up and then they were fighting.
Those two fought a lot. Paul would usually start it, but Therese was more than happy to join in. It would stop when Paul would threaten to kill Therese and then Therese would punch Paul.
Those two didn’t care where they were, they would still fight. Therese would say something Paul thought was stupid or Paul would make a remark and Therese would punch him. I just rolled my eyes most of the time and hoped neither one killed the other. Therese stabbed Paul once at a restaurant with a fork, but that’s another story.
While those two were going at it, I went to the part of the basement where the window was. I tried to see if the mist looked different from a different angle. I asked if one of them would go to the spot where the mist seemed strongest, and of course they both fought for who would go. They both went.
When they got to where it seemed darkest, Paul flashed his phone around and yelled at Therese. “Jesus Christ, Minnie, your shirt’s unbuttoned!” Sure enough, she looked down and her button-down shirt was fully unbuttoned.
She grabbed her shirt and called Paul a perv. “I didn’t touch you,” he said, “Don’t you think you would have noticed if I did?” The now embarrassed Therese buttoned her shirt. “Well I didn’t do it,” she said, “One of you clowns must have.” I reminded her that I was on the other side of the room, but that didn’t ease her comfort level.
Paul, who by this time had made his way to the bottom of the stairs, yelled out, “Does it seem a little chilly in here to you two?” I flashed my phone in his direction. Paul had pulled his pants down to his ankles.
“What the hell’s going on here?” he said.
Levity may sound disrespectful in cases like this, but it actually helps. In many ghost jobs, it’s a very heavy environment. If you can lighten the mood, you can deal with the spirits easier. That night it was needed.
#3: Electronics Will Do Odd Things,
It’s Just a Part of What Happens
Paul pulled up his pants and walked back to where we were both standing.
I told them both they needed to concentrate, but neither one of them were in the mood. They continued to fight—Therese said it wasn’t funny and that she didn’t unbutton her shirt, Paul accused her of being a stripper.
I walked toward the part of the room with the most construction equipment, and as I did, my phone lit up, then played the creepiest version of the Humpty Dumpty song I’d ever heard.
Therese and Paul shut up. “What the fuck was that?” Paul asked. “I don’t know,” I replied and continued to look at my phone.
“Let me see that thing,” Paul said as he walked toward me. Again my phone started playing Humpty Dumpty.
I didn’t have Humpty Dumpty on my playlist, anywhere.
Paul started getting creeped out. “Seriously dude, stop playing that fucking song.”
I told him I was a grown man—why would I have that on my phone? But he was convinced that I was somehow playing it. He examined my phone and couldn’t figure out what was going on. Then it happened again.
Now he was really creeped out. “Holy fuck, what is with your phone?” he asked, and then told us both that he was going upstairs.
My phone didn’t play that song again, ever. And how they made that happen still puzzles me.
But it did get our attention, and maybe that was the point.
It’s not unusual for lights to go on and off or clocks to stop. I’ve been on jobs where the stove will turn on and the doorbells will ring. It’s all a part of what happens when you deal with this stuff. Still, that was creepy.
We went upstairs and the house was very much alive. Paul was pretty dizzy by this time, and we decided we would come back in another few days.
We continued to go back to that house, and each time we did, there was new activity. Apparently the workers liked to smoke dope when they worked, which not only pissed the current ghosts off, but brought in new ones to party.
If this was an actual busting, we wouldn’t have let it get so bad. But this was more of a training exercise than a professional ghostbusting. I wanted things to get bad so Therese and Paul could be exposed to it.
Eventually we did clear the house, but it took a long time.
It takes a while for that feeling to leave you, once you go through something like that. But they both faced fears they had about being in a situation like that, and I have to say, they did really well.
Paul and Therese would go on a lot of jobs with me and they always turned out really fun, no matter how badly haunted the place was.
And because we had so much fun, it made the jobs really easy and lightened the places up, wherever we went.
The Bad Side of Ghostbusting Jobs
A job that wasn’t so fun was one I did with my sister Echo. We did this job not far from the city we both lived in.
We got a call from a landlord who said her tenant, a young man in his early thirties, was acting strangely. She said she had gone to the apartment a couple of times, and when she did, he only met her outside the apartment first. He asked that she not mention any females while in the apartment and not be too friendly to him while she was there. She assumed he had a girl with him, but whenever she went in, he was alone. She said she called us because she could feel the presence of someone in the apartment. She said she asked him if he ever noticed anything and he immediately said no and asked her to leave.
Prior to this, I wasn’t a big believer in ghosts being intimate with the living. I had heard about it, but I just had a hard time believing it. It seemed like something somebody would say to get attention or to be odd, which wasn’t that uncommon in my world.
When we arrived, we were met outside by the landlord, a woman in her sixties named Nancy. She told us she had a talk with her tenant, Derrick, about us coming over, and at first he was opposed to the idea. But her concern for his mental health, along with her property, convinced him to at least let us come in and meet him.
Normally, people are relieved to see us, finally feeling like someone might understand the goings on that they’ve had to deal with. But knowing Derrick wasn’t exactly happy we were coming made this job feel odd right off the bat.
Derrick met us at the door. I was surprised by how tall he was, about 6'5" maybe 240 pounds, with sandy blonde hair and glasses. My first impression was how shy he seemed; he didn’t make eye contact and preferred looking at the floor rather than at us. He didn’t engage in conversation, just a simple “Hello, how do you do” when introductions were made. But he didn’t come across as rude, just shy.
We all sat down, Echo, Nancy, and myself on one side of the room, Derrick facing us on the other. An awkward silence filled the room until Nancy broke it by explaining to Derrick why she asked us to come to his house. She went over the conversation the two had earlier about what she was concerned with, and what we did, and asked him again if everything was okay.
I, like Derick, wasn’t sure what the hell we were doing there. Was there an actual ghost or was this guy just off his nut? I could feel someone in the room, but they weren’t making their presence known and I wasn’t in the mood to play find the spook.
After Nancy’s question to Derrick, he became visibly anxious. He stood up and started walking around, pacing. Echo stepped in and asked if he was okay. He looked stressed. He said, “She’s here and she doesn’t like you two being here.”
Echo and I looked at each other like wtf.
I asked him to please sit down and explain what was going on, but instead he walked into the kitchen and started having a conversation with himself. Now I started to think he was crazy. I rolled my eyes at Echo and got up and went into the kitchen. He was a big guy, so I didn’t want to upset him, but my patience with ghost drama had worn off by ’75. He seemed surprised that I followed him to the kitchen. I again asked him to please come sit and explain what was going on, and this time he did.
He sat down, and with his head down, in a calm, quiet voice said, “Linda doesn’t like you guys being here.”
“Linda?” Echo asked, and again Derrick became quiet.
By now it was getting stupid. I didn’t know if this guy was a mental case or just needing attention. Judging by the sparse way his house was set up—very little furniture, no TV, a lonely plant here and there—it didn’t look like he did much socializing. Maybe he was just one of the people who did this for attention or company.
I said, “Look Derrick, I don’t know what’s going on, but if you don’t want us here, we can leave.”
He stood up again and said, “Okay fine, I’ll show you, but she’s going to be mad, I’m just warning you.” And with that he walked back into the kitchen.
I looked at Echo like “Seriously?” and got up and walked toward the kitchen with him. The kitchen was set up in an L shape. An open-door entrance with a stove and refrigerator to your left as you walked in, and if you continued straight you’d run into the kitchen sink and counter. As you turned right, a kitchen table fit snugly in the small other half, followed by another open door. When Derrick walked in, he did so at the stove and refrigerator entrance. He stopped with his back roughly against the refrigerator. I stood outside the kitchen this time because I honestly didn’t know if the guy was stable and I didn’t want to hang out in such cramped quarters with a mental guy.
Now Derrick started to talk out loud to himself, pacing back and forth as he did.
“I’m bringing a girl home tonight,” he said, “and you have to leave us alone.” He paused, looking at the air. “She’s really pretty,” he continued, “and I think I like her.”
I again looked over at Echo and made the “he’s nuts” sign with my fingers.
Suddenly, he started to panic. “she’s here!, she’s here!” he yelled and looked at both of us with sheer terror.
Now it had that performance artist feel to it. I either needed a box of popcorn or it was time to leave.
Up to this point Echo and I hadn’t seen anyone. We felt somebody, but we hadn’t seen them. But the way this guy was acting, whatever it was was with him in the kitchen. I could see in the kitchen and I saw nothing.
Just when I was about to say “This is stupid, we’re going to go,” Derrick started yelling again, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” He threw himself against the refrigerator door and turned his head back and forth violently like he was being slapped. “STOP!” he screamed, and then grabbed his chest as though he was just stabbed.
This was getting embarrassing. His performance, although semi-convincing, was just that—a performance.
I looked over at Echo to see if she agreed that we should leave, but Echo looked like she was in shock. She motioned for me to look at Derrick. I rolled my eyes and did what she asked. When I looked closer I saw Derrick’s feet barely touching the ground. He was on his tippy-toes, struggling to stand. On his face, slap marks were starting to appear. I looked back at Echo and mouthed the words “holy shit,” then I started to walk closer to where Derrick was standing. Just when I got to him, whatever was holding Derrick up released him. He grabbed his chest and tried to catch his breath. His buttoned plaid shirt was now unbuttoned. He looked disheveled and in pain. I asked if he was okay. In his soft voice, he said it hurt. I asked what hurt and he moved his hands to expose clear scratch marks down his chest. “My chest,” he said.
“Jesus, Derrick,” I said. “What the fuck was that?” I helped Derrick to the couch and told him to sit. He had the look of someone who had been through this before, embarrassed, in pain, but almost apologetic. “I told you, her,” he said.
“Okay, Derrick,” Echo said, “Start from the beginning.”
Derrick went on to explain that when he moved into the house, he was lonely. He said he wasn’t from around here and only came to get a decent job, but all he did was work all the time, come home, then go back to work. He said he didn’t have any friends here and his weekends were spent just watching TV and sleeping.
He said that about a year ago, this spirit showed up, a woman. He described her as being in her mid-thirties, attractive, with shoulder-length, sandy blonde hair. He said she called herself Linda.
At first it scared him. He didn’t know what to think or if he should tell somebody. He was certain that if he did, they would think he was crazy, so he kept it to himself. But, he said, she was nice to him. She was friendly, always happy to see him. She didn’t do weird things like play with the stereo and lights. She would greet him when he got home, and after a while, he said he looked forward to coming home and talking with her. He did wonder at some point if he had lost his marbles, but she felt so real, and he liked her company.
He said she complimented him about his appearance, suggested he start working out so he would like himself more, and generally seemed to care whether he was happy or not.
Then Derrick stopped talking.
All three of us looked at each other, mesmerized by what he had to say so far and wanting to hear more. But Derrick wasn’t talking, he just stared at the ground and shuffled his feet.
Finally, I asked him if he was alright. He lifted his head slightly and with that small voice said, “We became intimate.”
A sinking feeling came over me. I had heard of women being intimate with male spirits and somehow mechanically that made sense, but when Derrick said that he had been intimate, I had a hard time picturing it. I wasn’t going to assume he was nuts—something left those marks on his chest—but … really?
I asked him what he meant by intimate and he went on to describe how she came to him one night—he thought in a dream—and they made love. “But,” he said, “it wasn’t a dream.”
I was taught a long time ago not to judge. We all are a tad off and I didn’t want to call him a liar because, like I said, the marks were real, so I asked him to continue, even though I was having a hard time wrapping my brain around this one.
He said this continued for months, each time getting better and better. He couldn’t wait to go to bed.
At this point we were all crossing our legs and squirming in our seats. The tension was a bit thick, so to break that tension, I said with a smile, “Talk about safe sex,” but Echo gave me the stink eye, so I went back to shutting up.
He said everything was fine, he was feeling more confident, stronger about himself, so much so that he thought maybe he could date a real person. And he said when he told Linda that he was thinking about that was when the abuse started.
Now our night had gotten very complicated.
In a situation like this, you can’t just get rid of the spirit. Now it’s personal. The spirit has an entitlement; it couldn’t care less what we say or do. You have to get the living person the spirit is involved with to do most of the heavy lifting. They first have to really want the spirit to go, and then it’s like a break-up. They have to tell the spirit it’s time to leave, and we just become facilitators at that point.
We told Derrick what was needed for this to change. We spent the next three hours explaining the pros and cons of having a spirit lover, his responsibility to get rid of her, and what must change in his personal life so she wouldn’t come back if he was lonely again.
On this particular job it all went smoothly. We were able to convince Derrick to let go of Linda, to get out and date someone with skin. We were able to cross Linda over to the other side, and as far as I know, the problems ended there.
You have to change the dynamic. After you’ve heard the spooky story and you’ve walked through the spooky house with the spooky noises and the spooky lights going on and off and you’ve seen the spooky spook, you clear yourself of all that spookiness and concentrate on just the opposite. What do you love most in this world? Think of that. What is your favorite time, favorite place? You surround yourself with those feelings. You change the dynamic from spooky to nice. Now you’re ready to deal with the ghost objectively.
People ask me what the scariest ghostbusting job I ever did was. The scariest for me was when I knew the least about ghosts and ghostbusting. The more you know, the less afraid you become, because you know your strengths and you know theirs. You know they can’t harm you unless you let them. You know you have the power, not them. And you know you’re protected, and that alleviates most, if not all, of your fears.