With Halloween fast approaching, many people are out hunting for haunted houses, not just the carnival like fun house horrors you see in commercial haunted houses, but houses haunted by true ghosts and spirits. While ghost hunting is much more actively done around this time of year, there are also many people who hunt ghosts all year long, looking to find places with spirits and people with stories to tell of their own haunting experience. Most of these people are of the ‘amateur’ class of ghost hunter, though there are many societies and groups that perform paranormal investigation, some run by colleges others are run by more private funding. Now, let us assume that most people reading this are, like me, amateur ghost hunters who work mundane jobs, have long lists of bills to pay and families to support. For us, it can be a bit harder to get everything we need for the hunting.
Let’s use the example of someone who is aspiring to be a ghost hunter, this young person has done some research and knows basically what he should be doing. I’ll even assume that this person has a friend or a friend’s friend who lives in a house they believe to be haunted and wants an investigation done. Now, it is time for them to get their hands on some of the usual ghost hunting equipment, let’s start out by getting a good digital or Polaroid camera, add in a good quality tape recorder to see if you get anything on it you might miss. Good start so far, but what ghost hunting kit is complete without an electro-magnetic field detector, or EMF? Now you’re going to need a good video camera with night scope and motion sensors and of course it’s great to have night vision goggles, another nice edition is a thermal imaging scope, so you don’t just see a change in temperature, you get to see any anomalies as well.
So, one may ask, how does one get all this and what may it cost? Good questions, since as I said before, I’m writing this more for the amateur hunter rather than the professionally funded hunter. I personally don’t have much of this equipment myself, but I believe I have done fairly well in my hunting experiences. The way to get around paying out for all this expensive gear, simply by using simple, yet effective techniques that have been around for a long time before the invention of this gear. Most of what I use is things that I learned to use in my study of witchcraft and magick, and much of it has a basis in old or even ancient practices. I’ll show you how dowsing rods can be used to take the place of an EMF, or tarot and automatic writing can help you communicate with ghosts just as well as any recorder and how candles can show you the difference between a ghostly cold spot and a drafty room.
I already know that many people will disagree with me, that my folk methods of hunting ghosts are no replacement for the technological means to do the job. A lot of people, even ghost hunters, may doubt dowsing rods and tarot cards but please remember this; lots of people doubt the existence of ghosts just as much, so please keep an open mind. I also know that a lot of these technological devices are great to have, and can help greatly, even if you do use my more ‘mystical’ means of ghost hunting, I am just trying to show some cheaper alternatives, not outright replacements.
This being said, lets get down to business and talk ghost hunting. First off, what exactly is a ghost, and what isn’t? Since a variety of spirits can act in ways that ghosts do, it may get a little bit confusing, luckily, they also show most the same signs as ghosts do when they are about; changes in temperature, electro-magnetic interference, strange sensations or apparitions and other ghostly happenings. So, the ways of detecting them are fairly similar as well, especially in a mystical metaphysical sense. For our use we’ll break things down into two basic categories of entity haunting or phantasm images.
An entity haunting consists of an intelligent-to some degree- entity capable of independent thought and action, these are what most people think of when we speak of ghosts. They are the ones who can communicate with us, and can be possibly harmful to people, though not always. The entity may be an actual ghost, the spirit of a deceased human stuck between worlds, or maybe another entity. Anything from deceased animals, elemental spirits or other non-human spiritual beings or even-much more rarely-demonic spirits who are haunting a place or person. What exactly the entity is, is not as important as the fact as that it is there, and capable of independent action and thought.
A phantasmal image is actually much more common but less dramatic. It is when a traumatic incident causes psychic or emotional impressions to become trapped in a place and replay like an old movie, classic examples are the old widow looking out her window waiting for her husband who died at war to return or the murder scene that is replayed decades after it was committed. These images or sounds or whatever it is that is psychically stuck on the environment have no way of communicating or interacting with people. They can still pose a danger to people though, as sometimes the emotion that caused the psychic image also becomes stuck, filling the room or home with sadness, rage or fear. Thus, the place that is ‘haunted’ by the image of someone who committed suicide may also be full of the feelings of sadness and depression, soon driving the living occupant of the home to a similarly tragic fate.
So, now we have a very brief look at the kinds of ghostly activity that’s out there, let’s talk tools of the trade. A good Polaroid or digital camera is almost a must, despite wanting to show cheap alternatives to ghost hunting in this article, I’m afraid there’s not much way around this one, it is a great way to make sure you document any evidence you see of ghostly activity. A recorder would also be a great way to preserve evidence, though it is not quite as important as a camera. Onto the less typical ghost hunting equipment-odd thought, isn’t it, non-typical equipment for a non-typical hobby?
My personal favorite piece of equipment is the dowsing rod, at its most basic it is a length of wire or metal that is bent into an l-shape. The other typical variety is a y-shaped piece of metal or even wood that you hold by the two prongs and use the stick to guide you. Now, a dowsing rod can run a bit pricey depending on how much you have to spend, but there is a great solution to this, make your own! To do this, take a non-coated, copper hanger and cut out the long straight piece at the bottom, then simply bend it into an L-shape. You can then take some napkins or, my preference, a bit of a drinking straw to hold the rod in. Of course you may worry that you’ll look unprofessional or silly doing this, but once you start having success with the technique you should start to forget these feelings. Dowsing rods were normally used as a means to find underground water and are still used for that by some people. They also attract to energy, like the kind of energy that ghosts and other spirits are responsible for. You can take two L-shaped rods and walk around the area trying to tune in with energy around you, as you move through the area and come to energy spots the two rods will come together and separate as you move away.
An alternative way is to use one and quiet your mind as you try and find ghostly activity or ask the rod to lead you to the best place to find a ghost, etc. I have found many nice spots to take pictures of with this method and come up with some good ghostly pictures. The dowsing rod is a great way to lead you around a haunted site and find things you might pass up. I would also like to point out to skeptics of the rods that there have been experiments done by parapsychologists in which the results of a dowsing rod were tested against the results of EMF testing and were found to match fairly well.
Another wonderful method used is the automatic writing method, one I and many others have used to great success. It is simple to use and yields interesting results. All you must do is to meditate at a haunting site with a piece of paper and a writing utensil, as you meditate, try to ask for a message from any spirit entity present, if there are any there who feel like ‘talking’ you should soon start writing, though it will not be you writing but the entity or spirit. Obviously, this method is only useful in cases of an entity haunting, as it requires intelligence to communicate in this way. Let me give out a little piece of advise though, as exciting as it is to commune with spirits in this way do not immediately assume that the ghost, spirit, or whatever entity present is going to be honest or helpful. A dead person who was cruel or spiteful in life will probably have a similar personality after death, and many spirits that were non-human have no reason to be kind to humans at all. So, this being said, why communicate like this at all? Because it can help open up a communication, and in time you can come to get to know the spirit, so to speak, and you may eventually find out some important clues and information from it as to who or what it is and what it may want. You may just find a way to send a restless spirit to its final peace.
Along the same line, though a little less reliable and specific are the tarot cards. While you won’t get any direct information out of a ghost or spirit this way, you maybe able to spread the cards to give you a good idea about the emotions of the entity or at least the emotional state when it died. Also using the cards and asking the ghost to guide you, you may pick a card that describes the basic personality traits of the spirit so you can get an idea of the motivating factors present. Be sure to cleanse your cards when you are done, either by passing each card one by one through the smoke of a purifying incense like sage, myrrh or frankensince.
Channeling is another great way to communicate, but takes a bit more training than the other methods. Basically you ask the ghost to communicate to you, or through you while in a deep trance. Most people have heard about mediums of some sort or another and this method has met with great success in paranormal investigations. Unfortunately, as mentioned, it takes a bit more time and training to use. In contradiction to popular myth, many propagated by mediums themselves, anyone can learn to do it if they wish to spend the time. Simple meditation on a regular basis can be a good way to start opening yourself up to these experiences and there are many books available to you if you wish to learn more about this kind of spiritual communication.
Another good, but trained skill, is astral projection, which is the ability to send your spirit or astral self out into the spirit or astral world. In this way you act on a ghosts ‘level’ being of the same level of being as they are. It is a technique I have practiced for several years and have visited a few ghosts and spirits with it. It can be a thrilling experience, though many will dismiss it as just being imaginary. You can astral project to both spiritual worlds and physical sites; I have done both to varying degrees of success. If you do chose to try this, please learn a few simple psychic defense techniques as well, just so you do not end up in the presence of a harmful ghost or spirit with no way to protect yourself!
The last thing I wish to touch on is not really mystical at all, but a cheap way to make sure you really are in the presence of an unexplained cold spot. A simple candle is all you need to check this. When in a spot that you think is cold, or even if a thermometer reads as being suddenly cold, light a normal candle, preferably a taper, and set it down in the spot. Watch to see if the flame dances as if it is being blown by the wind, this may be a hint if the spot is caused by a spirit or if the house is just drafty. It’s a good way to make sure you save yourself wasted time and possible embarrassment.
Finally, I would like to talk about the most important tool you’ll ever need in a ghost hunting situation; an open mind. I do not mean to simply keep your mind open and believe in the possibility of a ghost; I mean to keep your mind open fully to all possibilities. Make sure you’re not convinced from the start that there is no ghost or spirit, but at the same time, don’t make yourself believe there is one so that every shadow you see becomes a phantom or every speck of dust you photograph becomes a paranormal orb. I do believe whole-heartedly that ghosts, spirits and many other strange creatures and beings exist, but I also believe in the possibility of mundane causes as well. Remember, floorboards squeak, pipes moan, dust particles do sometimes look like glowing orbs on film and sometimes a drafty room is just a drafty room. Never forget too, though, that there are things in this world, and the worlds surrounding our own, that do come through at times. Ghosts are real, it is a fact that the United States judicial system officially recognized in the 1990 Nyack case in which the Supreme Court of New York ruled that buyers must be notified of a haunting when they buy homes. So while you should be careful in just assuming everything is a ghost, don’t let that convince you nothing is. Keep your mind open and who knows what you could find in that old attic or that lonely basement.
Reference:
- Monsters by John Micheal Greer-great information about ghosts, spirits and other monsters as well as simple protective measures to use. www.dowsingworks.com/ A good site for dowsers.
