If you watch much reality television, you’ve very likely seen one or more of the shows that center around groups of so-called ghost “hunters”.  I’ve never liked using the term “hunters” or the even more popular “busters” as both imply an adversarial approach to the misplaced spirits.  That’s why I’ve chosen to be a ghost rescuer and why I insist that those I work with adopt a similar philosophy.  While each of our investigations is unique, our methodology doesn’t vary.

INTERVIEW CLIENT(S)

I prefer to know as little as possible before arriving on site.  That way my feelings aren’t clogged with expectations the way a shower drain gets clogged with hair (or sometimes those soap chips).  I always assume the client is telling the truth from the very beginning.  Perceptions often suffer when a person is confronted with the supernatural so they don’t always remember things exactly as they happened. I give them the benefit of the doubt prior to our initial site visit.  Once we arrive, I like to sit down with the clients in their space and get them to tell me about their experiences.  If there’s more than one witness we prefer to interview them separately just so we can see what different details might emerge.  I try to pair up each witness with the interviewer they are most likely to respond positively to.  For example, Ricky’s always been very good with teenage girls.

EXPLORE SPACE & GATHER DATA

Next, we proceed to the location of the purported ghostly activity.  We place glowing markers at the locations where activities were felt or observed so we can focus our observations there but we’re careful not to neglect surrounding areas.  Ghosts often move in erratic, wanton ways and ignore walls, floors, and other solid surfaces.

We employ a variety of devices including electromagnetic field (EMF) meters, compasses, infrared cameras, temperature guns, motion detectors, strobes, still cameras, ghost boxes, digital recorders, pencils, paper, pens, timekeeping devices, flashlights, water guns, automobiles and white noise generators but our number one and number two tools are always our wits.  I get more information from the “feeling” of a room than I do from the instrumentation we employ.  I want to gather the experience of the space before employing some of the more mundane data-gathering techniques.  As valuable as they may be, objective data can often be twisted to support whatever theories one would like to shore up.  Ghosts are also capable of deception and can clearly see what methods you are employing to detect them.  They can therefore opt to engage in behavior that will skew your findings to achieve their own goals.  Your own feelings never lie to you.

DISCUSS FINDINGS

After the data is gathered and examined a determination must be made.  If it is determined that the client’s space is indeed occupied by one or more wayward spirits, we will engage the spirits and attempt to rescue them from the trap they’re in.

HELP SPIRITS FIND THEIR WAY

Oftentimes this can be achieved through simple conversation.  The ghosts need to be made to realize A. that they’re dead and B. that they have not moved on to the next plane of existence.  I will attempt to inform them of this through the use of direct verbal stimulation.  At no time are the ghosts antagonized even if their behavior indicates a bratty or obnoxious attitude toward us or our clients.  Perhaps they were simply used to getting their way in their former life (as a studio executive, for example) and that terrifying behavior has crossed over with them onto the ethereal plane.

If basic information doesn’t work (and it often does not), we move on to more visceral methods.  While some of these methods might at first glance appear to be inhumane you must remember that our ultimate goal is the release of the spirits from the Earthly plane.  We may have to subject them to things that they dislike in order to drive them to their proper path.  Over the years I have discovered that there are several very reliable methods of achieving this.  These include scents (fragrant cheeses, certain car air freshers, Pine-Sol [which, it should be noted, is unsafe for feline pets], and overcooked Hot Pockets), sounds (whistling tea kettles, yelping pomeranians, and Falco’s The Sound of Muzik), and sights (three randomly flashing lights, flashing triangles, and those 3-D posters they used to sell at the mall).

CLEANSE THE SPACE

The last step is to make sure the haunts don’t return.  We do that by performing a blessing ritual in the previously haunted space.  This ritual varies dependent on the values of the clients as we endeavor to remain respectful of all beliefs, but most often involves slicing the space with prayer beads while chanting any soothing, peaceful song.  Songs by Dan Fogelberg are discouraged.  We want to put the spirits at ease, not depress them.

What are the beings we refer to as “ghosts”?  It’s a difficult question to answer simply because we have limited abilities when it comes to our senses.  We are often unable (or unwilling in the case of some) to witness spiritual entities on our plane of existence.  Sometimes we feel them more than we see or hear them.  That cold tingle tells us something’s “not right” but we can’t pinpoint the source of our discomfort.  We feel someone is watching us but then we turn and no one is there.  What did we just experience and how can we be certain that it was a “ghost”?

The first step is for us to decide what we will call a ghost and what we will not.  Many researchers now believe that poltergeists, once thought to be malevolent spirits, are simply the manifestation of psychokinetic activity from living beings undergoing biological stress.  IMHO, a ghost has to be a sentient spirit of a person who no longer is in possession of his or her body.  Does that mean the person is dead?  Not always.  A person with the ability to have powerful out of body experiences might have their spiritual presence seen and felt by others.  The important point is that the spirit and the body are only tenuously connected or not connected at all.  That spirit is what I would call a ghost.

There are some researchers who believe much of what is deemed ghostly is little more than “bleed-throughs” from other times.  Time is not as linear as we once believed.  It is feasible that a person in another time but sharing the same physical space could be visible to those in our present time.  For example, let’s say a young boy is visiting the Lincoln Memorial in Washington DC right now.  As he stands on the steps he sees a faint image of a woman standing on the same steps.  The woman looks at the boy and then disappears.  What if the woman were standing on the steps in 1925 and could see the boy in the same way he sees her?  Each would believe they had seen a ghost, but they hadn’t.  They had simply seen an impression of a person who exists in another time.  This sort of explanation goes a long way toward explaining many so-called “ghosts”.  Legends often describe ghosts as flying.  If these “ghosts” were really time shifts, perhaps those beings were riding in an unseen vehicle or standing in a building that did not exist in the other time.  The possibilities are endless.

The main point is that for us the term “ghosts” will refer to disembodied spirits who should not be sharing our plane of existence.  Whether through confusion, mishap, or malevolence, these pitiful beings are suffering in the afterlife and I see it as our responsibility to help guide them home.

For those of you who’ve been a part of our brick-and-mortar investigations for the last couple of years not only are we (finally) going online but we are also moving into a new office and storage space.  We really didn’t need much space but with the market the way it is now we were able to lease this old ice cream factory for a song.  That’s right.  It was once an old ice cream factory!  Crazy.

Now we actually have enough room for a tech lab, a couple of small offices and even a conference room.  None of it looks like much yet but there’s real potential.  Ricky’s already connected his sound system.  Now if I could just get him to lay off the metallica. 

Here are a couple of pics of the space.  Love the funky 70’s decor in the vestibule.  there are also some hidden areas that were created when the building was refurbed with a new facade.  I’d love to be able to free any spirits that are trapped here but so far it seems to be clean.  We’ll be keeping our eyes open, though!  Here’s one last pic of yours truly in the vestibule.  Best wishes!

Thank you for visiting us here at our new home on the web. The GRUE team has been investigating paranormal activity in the Southern California area for several years now but we never felt the need to publicize our work.  Most of the time we managed to have more work than we could handle through simple referrals.  Times have changed, though, and we now feel that we should be here online in order to help educate those of you who are being fed misinformation.  There are lot of so-called paranormal “experts” out there who would have you believe that ghosts are playthings to be toyed with for human entertainment.  Nothing could be further from the truth.

Ghosts are people too.  They either don’t know that they’ve died or the events of their lives are so traumatic that they are afraid to move on.  In either case, we see it as our solemn duty to assist these ephemeral spirits with their passage to the other side.  We see ourselves as rescuers, not hunters.  A hunter seeks out prey.  A rescuer lends a helping hand.  We seek only enlightenment for ourselves and for those spirits we assist.

Zen master Shunryu Suzuki once described the life we see and feel as the existence of a droplet of water in a waterfall.  We are all one river before that life begins but then we fragment into many separate drops only to become one again at the bottom of the fall.  What Suzuki didn’t address were those droplets that evaporated before they rejoined the river.  I like to think of those as the ghostly spirits we strive to reconnect with the flow of the afterlife.

We hope to have a lot more info up on the site soon.  In the meantime, please don’t hesitate to contact us via our GET HELP page.  Thanks for stopping by!