The Brave Mortal's Guide to Ghost Hunting

by Alex Matsuo

  The Brave Mortal’s Guide to Ghost Hunting

  ALEX MATSUO

  Copyright © 2019 Alex Matsuo

  Cover design by Natania Barron

  Edited by Jennifer Edwards

  All rights reserved.

  ISBN: 9781707543717

  DEDICATION

  This book is dedicated to the members of the paranormal community; past, present, and future.

  Table of CONTENTS

  Acknowledgments

  i

  1

  Introduction

  Types of Ghosts

  1

  7

  2

  Why Do Ghosts Haunt?

  17

  3

  Bringing the Humanity Back into Ghost Hunting

  25

  4

  Theories of Hauntings

  32

  5

  History of Ghost Hunting

  41

  6

  Historical Research

  50

  7

  Staying Safe

  58

  8

  How to Protect Yourself

  66

  9

  How to Talk to Ghosts

  72

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  17

  18

  The Ghost Hunt Process

  Provocation

  Working with Psychic Mediums & Abilities

  Tech

  21st Century Gadgets

  After the Ghost Hunt

  Ghost Tourism

  Becoming a Ghost Hunter

  The Inclusiveness of Ghost Hunting

  Conclusion

  87

  95

  102

  112

  122

  126

  132

  137

  144

  148

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  This book wouldn’t have happened without the amazing support and editing skills of my case manager, Jenny Edwards. I want to thank my team at Association of Paranormal Study for their tireless efforts and hard work as we try to solve the mystery of the supernatural.

  I also want to thank my “Dream Team” for their endless love and support in 2019 (and hopefully many more years). Their faith in me gave me the energy and inspiration I needed to make this book a reality.

  Finally, I want to thank Chris Yarborough for his support, and for being my biggest cheerleader.

  introduction

  What is ghost hunting? This seems like an easy answer: hunting for ghosts! But it is so much more than that.

  What most people know about ghost hunting comes from the paranormal television industry. From the early television specials in the mid-20th century to the multitude of ghost hunting shows today, there has been a mass exposure of paranormal oddities. Because questions of the afterlife are nearly universal, the popularity of ghosts and ghost hunting never really goes away. The commercial industry has ups and downs, but we can count on it to eventually bounce back as people get interested again. The paranormal community is rich and inclusive with the right people. Regardless of what your involvement is in the paranormal, whether you want to go in 100% or go on the occasional ghost hunt, the community is ready for you. There is research, there is testing, there are repeated scenarios, there's equipment, there's traveling, there's learning. Speaking of learning, ghost hunting can almost be an academic department of its own!

  Even with all this, I am honestly am not a fan of the term "ghost hunting" or the thought of "hunting" for ghosts. When I hear about paranormal investigators going on a "hunt," I think of Elmer Fudd saying, "Be vewy vewy quiet. I'm hunting spiwits." If you replace "ghost" with a word like "people," it becomes "people hunting." Regardless of how you think, "people hunting" is a rather creepy phrase. But ghosts are people. It can be easy to distinguish people and ghosts as two different things, but they're really the same. Think of that ghost as a spirit without a body. They're still people.

  I know what you're thinking; if I hate the term "ghost hunting" so much, why is it the title of this book? Well, the term is more popular than others like "paranormal investigating" or "research." When we think of ghost hunting, we all have a fairly consistent image in our heads. In fact, most of us are probably imagining a similar version of the concept, complete with night vision and EMF meters crackling.

  This is the reason why I wrote this book. I wanted to create a guide for those curious about what paranormal investigation and research is all about, and I wanted to empower all with knowledge as you embark on this journey.

  Ghost hunting reflects our society. Even though we are moving forward in technology and how we interact with each other, we humans still want to go back to basics. In a world where we have information at the tip of our fingertips, we still have questions with no answers. Yet, so many mysteries of the past remain unsolved. We still don't have a confirmed positive ID on Jack the Ripper, and we still have no answers as to what the citizens of Point Pleasant, West Virginia, experienced during the Mothman days. Weird stuff happens every day, all over the world. Today's technology merely exposes the anomaly, but it hasn't helped us in solving the mystery. This is why I believe that while technology may not be able to give us an answer, it can at least grab our attention and spread the word about the weirdness happening around the world.

  These days, the average, non-paranormal person goes on a ghost hunt because they want to get a glimpse of something weird. They yearn for something that goes outside of their daily routine. Or, they might want to hear a ghost story or two and get their adrenaline rushing from a potential run-in with the unknown. These people will usually do the ghost hunt for a night, under the guidance of a tour company, and then move on with their lives the next morning. That is, until the urge to go ghost hunting strikes again. Ghost tours are now thriving because of this curiosity. It seems that no matter which city you visit, some sort of ghost tour is available where you can learn about the local lore.

  History tells us that people have always had some sort of interest in the paranormal. Dating back thousands of years, communication with ghosts was always a thing. Perhaps it's because we don't really know what happens to us after we die. Ever since man could look to the sky and believe in something bigger than himself, we have been trying to find proof of an afterlife. This yearning has evolved into hundreds of different ways of investigating. What many don't realize is that ghost hunting has a very rich history. Many of the methods we use today come from hundreds of years of trial and error. Of course, ghost hunting was fine-tuned in the 20th century, which laid a more solid foundation for what we use today.

  But keep in mind that these methods are not perfect. Before you go into ghost hunting, you must first determine what you want to get out of it. If you're looking to be scared and live your favorite horror movie in real life, this might not be the route you want to go. If you want to learn about another aspect of history and perhaps hear a ghost story to freak you out, you're getting warmer. If you're someone who is of the logical mind and has to have solid proof of anomalies, then this field might make your hair turn gray.

  What is truly unique about the paranormal community is that people come from all different backgrounds and experiences. And yet, everyone has a place here. Sure, we often end up with tensions and disagreements, but our different ideas are what makes this field all the more interesting. We're able to gain different perspectives on what it means to believe in the paranormal, what it means to question it, and what it means to validate our individual experiences.

  So
many books that tell you how to ghost hunt already fill the shelves. All you need to do is head to your local library or go online and type "how to ghost hunt" in your search bar and voila! We live in an age of instant gratification with information available everywhere.

  Yet, even with a lot of information online--or maybe because we have so much access to information -- we can’t assume that it's always correct.

  Take Wikipedia for example. Anyone can edit Wikipedia, and yet millions of people, especially college students, depend on it for information. For me, I like to use Wikipedia for sources. This means I'm scrolling to the bottom to see who is cited as a reliable source and I go from there. But even experts, especially self-proclaimed experts, can be wrong.

  I've found that most of the available books and write-ups are either outdated, resort to the same basic methodology, or are biased. The Brave Mortal’s Guide is meant for the curious person who is considering going on a ghost hunt and wants to see both sides of the coin. Well, in the paranormal world, there are multiple coins, and thus multiple sides. If you look at the field from just a few years prior to this book's publication, so much has changed. Technology continues to evolve, even if it's not scientifically sound. New methods are coming into the light each day and are tested out on the field. What people were using five years ago isn't being used as much today, if at all. If we go back even further, we find true relics in ghost hunting gear. For example, while you may still find an EMF meter in your basic ghost hunting kit, what we understand of it has changed. Back then, people would say that ghosts were able to manipulate the devices and make the lights move. Today, even the strictest believer will tell you that the K2 or EMF meter is meant to measure the electromagnetic field. Cell phones, walkie talkies, computers, and more will make it go off.

  I also know that the many facets of ghost hunting can be overwhelming at first. With so many voices in the field, how do you decide who to believe right off the bat? If we truly want to look for ghosts and find proof of the afterlife, we have to do more than just visit as many locations as possible. We have to do more than listen to the tour guides. We have to do more than read just a few books.

  My intention is to give you, my dear reader, a taste of what paranormal research is like. From the beginning stages of research and preparation to data review and presentation, the paranormal world isn't so scary once you know the steps. I have written this book to save you the trial and error phase that I went through for years finding my way as an investigator and researcher. Mistakes were made, and many lessons were learned. My hope is that by skipping those "growing pains" and learning through my experience, you can go directly to having a more fulfilling and interesting ghost hunting experience. I've been in the field for well over a decade and did all the typical foolery in my early days of looking for ghosts. I am grateful for these experiences, though, because they made me the paranormal investigator that I am today. Also, I want to use this book to advocate the use of empathy and other more humane practices of paranormal investigation; treating spirits like people who have died means avoiding command performances and disrespectful talk in the pursuit of a more exciting investigation.

  I will share with you stories of my early ghost hunting days, what communication methods are more effective than others, what I’ve learned working with psychic mediums, how to avoid being fooled by fraud, and why you don't need to spend thousands of dollars on equipment. At the end of the day, you can save yourself a tremendous amount of time (and money!) by hearing it from someone who has a no-nonsense approach to the field.

  Why is ghost hunting so popular? Ghost hunting rose to massive popularity in the early 2000s with the explosion of paranormal reality shows and the innovation of the Internet. The Internet had been around for a few years but wasn't yet accessible to the mass audience it enjoys today. Around the late 1990s and early 2000s, the Internet became a regular part of the standard American home. From there, message boards and groups were created; people finally found a place where they could talk about their experiences with like-minded people. We now had chat communities that encompassed the entire country, and no matter where we were living, we could explore ideas with people who thought like us. The early days of the Internet also offered a massive level of anonymity.

  Mainstream television has certainly played a part in shaping our perception of the paranormal. I do appreciate how reality television has made the paranormal "more normal,'' so to speak, and has given people an outlet to express their own beliefs. These social changes have created a strong paranormal community where people can share their experiences with like-minded people.

  Ghost hunting is also popular simply because it is something people don't normally do. It's not something like working out at the gym or going out to eat. It's not an average activity. It's exciting; it's spooky; it's mysterious. We watch celebrities doing it on TV. You'd be surprised how many people are actually interested in the paranormal or have had a paranormal experience, but don't want to talk about it in public.

  Many aren't brave enough to go on a ghost hunt on their own. I can't even count how many people I've hosted on ghost hunts who have been terrified. While the paranormal can be scary, it can also be fun and fulfilling. Most of us ghost hunters are on a mission to either find proof of the afterlife or to make a connection with history.

  I've also found that ghost hunting is so popular is because we don't know what is waiting for us on the other side. Whether it's because we lost friends or loved ones, or because we are afraid of our own eventual demise, we want some sort of confirmation that there is life after death.

  Finally, the utter mystery of death is the reason why so many people, me included, are interested in the paranormal. Death makes me uncomfortable, and I've almost died a few times. One was from a car accident, and I've had a few brushes with health issues that remind me of my own mortality. I want to know for sure that our consciousness survives once our physical bodies are gone. I truly want to know if I'll ever see my mother, grandma, grandpa, and all of my friends who have left this world too soon. If I can have that one chance to interact with a ghost and be able to confirm information without the chance of confirmation bias, then maybe I won't be so afraid of death. Until then, death is going to continue to make me uneasy.

  However, you might have a different reason for reading this book. Perhaps your reason wasn't even mentioned. The paranormal manages to bring in people from all walks of life, all for a common interest and a common purpose. As you get ready to start this journey, ask yourself why you want to get into ghost hunting, and what you hope to get out of it.

  So, sit back, relax, and curl up with a drink as you learn how to “fish” in the world of a paranormal investigator.

  CHAPTER ONE:

  TYPES OF GHOSTS

  As we have seen, trying to define a ghost is no easy task. You could say this is a nearly impossible feat. Why is that? Because we have yet to trap a ghost and be able to analyze it; we don't know what it is. We don't know what it is made of and what makes it tick. In your exploration of the paranormal, you'll likely run into numerous definitions of ghosts, spirits, etc. Some groups may see these terms as synonymous while others vehemently address a strong difference between these definitions. Everyone will have a different answer. People interpret the paranormal in different ways because it is such a personal experience.

  For the purpose of this book, we will move forward with the idea that a ghost is an intelligent being capable of independent thought and can make meaningful responses. These are usually human spirits. I may also use the words entity or spirit as well. If I use the term "residual," then I am talking about a haunting that has no consciousness. Unlike a ghost or spirit, this type of haunting is similar to a recording that plays over and over again like a broken record. It is an occurrence that happens like clockwork. In typical fashion in the paranormal field, we can't really agree on why this happens.

  Spirits

  You may also encounter hauntings caused by inhum
an spirits. I must emphasize that this does not mean that they are evil. These hauntings and occurrences can be something called elementals, like Fae or spirits of nature. And while we’re at it, let me also say that even a human spirit may bring negative energy, but it doesn't mean that they are evil. If a person was a jerk in life, there's a good chance they might be a jerk in the afterlife. Considering that so many things are happening in the paranormal community these days with people getting involved who aren't well-versed in people skills, I sometimes think that these ghosts are in a bad mood. Some of the most popular haunted locations get traffic every day, and local spirits converse with people every day. For someone still alive, this can be an overwhelming experience and will deter anyone from wanting to engage. This might explain why some people will get lots of activity at a haunted location one night, but the next group coming in won't get any kind of engagement.

  As mentioned before, a ghost is defined as the spirit of a person (or another being) who hasn't moved on and is sticking around our world. Some say it is the survival of consciousness, others say that the soul is existing outside of the human body. With so many definitions of what a ghost or spirit actually is, we --ironically enough -- have yet to find a clear-cut definition. Some may see a ghost as residual energy stuck in a time loop, while others define a spirit as a conscious and aware being. You may talk to people who have completely different definitions, and that is okay. We have no streamlined process when it comes to defining these terms. We also have no "official" organization dedicated to defining or finding consensus on how to ghost hunt either. You will find hundreds of different techniques. Ultimately, you have to choose the one that works best for you personally.