Ghost Adventures-The Old Days

I am a part-time Paranormal Investigator. Some moments it’s a calming and relaxing hobby, others thrilling and exciting. I love the feeling of being with the dead, of investigating spiritual unknowns, collecting and reviewing evidence, using interesting equipment to gather that evidence, the list goes on. This is not just a hobby, but a set thing I have to incorporate into at least a weekly routine. I admit it: I’m addicted. I’ve wondered if I have developed a dependence on electromagnetic energy, the basic makeup of a spirit. I can’t go too long without being in a spiritually heavy place, the longing for it is always there after leaving. That’s why it’s sort of, what I call a chore, to visit the cemetery in the city at least once a week. It’s a lot of work, the hours of digital recorder footage I still haven’t finished analyzing, all of the pictures and video with every square inch needing to be recorded. The longer I stay out at a place, the more footage there is. That’s the best part though, just being present in a place where you know there are people that have died, people that may not have departed the physical world yet. Or are they willingly transferring between the physical world and somewhere else? I know for a fact that some spirits are dead people that are keeping themselves in the world because they either don’t realise they’re gone, or they were not ready to leave yet. There are, unfortunately, some things that exist for purposes of what one would call Evil. Dark Forces. This is actually going to be about how I got into this. Many people have that big story that got them hooked and entangled in such an activity; this is mine.

I was 11 years old, almost 12, when I accidentally found this show on TV. It showed these dudes with cameras interviewing these people about their paranormal experiences. About 20 minutes later these guys had someone actually lock them into this abandoned prison at dusk so they could run around and collect evidence of the paranormal in the pitch-black darkness until the sun rises. This show is Ghost Adventures, and it helped kick off my obsession with ghosts and spirits and certain types of equipment. I flipped to the channel towards the beginning of the episode at the Ohio State Reformatory. I got to see the old former inmate DJ Fly walk into his old neighboring cell and freak out saying he was being bothered by the guy that died in there. I saw these girls confess to being attacked by unseen forces. My favorite pre lockdown part was watching everyone lose their microphone batteries and doing a segment in the middle of the day with cameras but no audio. I would understand later that spirits can drain power and energy from anything with power, mainly anything with batteries, sometimes a living person’s physical energy, and use that energy for themselves. The best part of the show was the lockdown, when Zak Bagans, Nick Groff, and Aaron Goodwin were actually locked into the main building. They went to places that were important to people they interviewed and used the history they learned to call out to certain people with recorded deaths. Several pieces of complex and pieces of equipment were used to gather visual and audio evidence. EVPs, or electronic Voice Phenomenas, were captured on digital recorders, a couple of weird mists were caught, and a conversation was held using the word database inside the video goggles. They even brought in a girl to use as a trigger object and made her go into a “dangerous” area to get more evidence. I enjoyed that Zak narrated over everything to explain everything happening, made things make sense a bit. Every bit of captured information was replayed three times to make sure you saw and heard everything. At the end they showed some expert some evidence and gave his opinion on the science behind the paranormal.

I tracked this show down and became its biggest fan. I followed Zak Nick and Aaron, later Billy Tolley and Jay Wasley. After every episode, I would go and research the locations they were just at to find out more. It’s actually quite amazing how much history I learned from this show that I would have never learned in school or by any other coincidence. I looked at other tv shows like Ghosts Hunters, which I didn’t fall in love with the same way, and even started doing my own research on the Google on the computer. Some days when I should have been doing homework, I would just hunt for more information about ghosts and the spirit world. On my 13th birthday, my family threw me a ghost themed birthday, but the real event was when the sun went down at my first ever investigation. I grew up in the St Louis Missouri area and never realised one of the most haunted cities in the country was right across the Mississippi River, a little city called Alton Illinois. We found an overnight ghost hunt at the long shut down Mineral Springs Hotel the night of my birthday. My mother, grandmother, grandfather, and aunt took me to the experience of a lifetime. I was the only one actually excited for it, the others went and were interested, but not so excited about the haunting aspect. I can’t remember every little detail but several things were seared into my memory, such as the dream I had that night when I saw the child that drowned in the swimming pool in the basement of the hotel, the same one we did an actual séance in. I was 13 and still new to the paranormal world, I was not the brightest child either, but I evidently thought I knew damn well what I was doing when I took one of the marbles out of that swimming pool. For anyone that doesn’t know, taking items out of a haunted place can easily disturb a spirit or get them to attach to you. I still have the marble. It was suggested that I return it, but the child had nearly 100 marbles in that pool and the activity around the house was not that bad, I just had a feeling that she didn’t stay long. The marble is no longer connected to her, unless she decided to move on at the house it was left at. It remains a souvenir of mine now, still in my possession seven years later. Now that I’m more awakened to the spiritual life, I know there is no more energy attached to it. There were many marbles in the pool and the guide told us that if we brought one home, she would follow each person separately but only for a short while before returning to her resting place. It sure seems that is the case, I dreamt about her for a couple of days and never saw or heard her again. I want to go back, and my mom and I have tried, but every time we scheduled a tour or hunt, something has happened to ruin it. The first one was a tornado warning across the Midwest, the other time the guide had a heart attack the day of the tour, not a major one but he was rushed to the hospital. I know, that’s not a good sign, being denied entry every time we try to go back. There will be one day that I do. I want to go back because I now have years of experience and knowledge and maturity, I know everything so much better now.

Over the years I would get to go to several other tours and hunts, I would get a new piece of equipment every birthday until I moved out, and cemeteries became a second home to me. My own home was haunted by three people and I never knew it until my mind was opened. Going into an actual place is difficult because they are tourism attractions, you have to pay for them and occasionally you get put with people that think it’s a joke or were dared to do it when they don’t want to. Now that I’m moved out and into a place that just has no electromagnetic energy anywhere, I rely on the city cemetery to hep me. I discovered I had a sixth sense, that I can walk into a location and tell whether it’s even remotely haunted or not at all. I can feel even the slightest residual spiritual energy in a place that is lightly haunted. I could tell I had this power when I would walk into new places and feel it, and it would be even more obvious when I left that it also left. My house was very haunted by three active people. I lived and slept in that house for years, and I would always notice a dramatic shift in environment the moment I walked out the front door. When I left for college, it was only 24 hours when I realised I was so uncomfortable in a place that was so empty and had no energy. I blamed it on homesickness and unfamiliarity, but it became quite obvious when I started to feel that sense of Home at a cemetery, and the loss of feeling would return once I left. It’s quite obvious now that I need this energy, the feeling of being in the proximity of a dead spirit or just the energy that comes from a place where someone tragically and powerfully passed.

Once again, I was oblivious to what all of this meant. I was oblivious to the fact that this is something that is mostly associated with witchcraft and paganism. I was oblivious that Christianity absolutely despises any communication with the dead, and that anything in the paranormal world is considered evil and needs to be avoided or destroyed. The Ghost Adventures Crew support crosses and the name of Jesus, but because they purposely go into this field they are considered witches or devil worshippers by some upset people. According to society, my Christian views conflict with my hobby, and I am not a real Christian while practicing such a massive part of witchcraft. I’ve been a Christian the majority of my life, this is just something that I was exposed top but found a huge purpose of life in. I go to church once a week and a cemetery once a week. I just accept that both are not a big deal. Maybe I’m wrong and they are, but until there is a clear sign I’m staying with this life that is just so natural and normal to me. Everyone has different ways of life, I am weirded out by some people, some are weirded out by me. But that’s perfectly fine, I’m happy my way, everyone should be happy their own ways. Now, there could have been many things to get me into the paranormal, but I thank Ghost Adventures for lighting the spark. But the show was very different back then. In a way, innocent, like me. It’s very different now. My new critique about the Ghost Adventures tv show today will be in Pt 2: Ghost Adventures Now

Blessed Be, —Cas
This essay was originally written by me on September 13th, 2018

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