“Kindred Spirits” host: Ghosts are people, too
Amy Bruni had her first spirit encounter when she was 6 years old
Amy Bruni has learned plenty about ghosts through decades of paranormal investigation.
The now 44- year- old former star of the reality television series “Ghost Hunters” and current co- host and producer of Travel Channel’s “Kindred Spirits” grew up in a haunted house in Alameda, Calif., and says she had her first encounter with the spirit world at the age of 6.
Since then, she said she’s been to hundreds of haunted locations around the world and has experienced countless paranormal activities, ranging from full- body apparitions to uneasy voices coming through her ghost- hunting equipment.
She’s taken all this experience and broken it down in her new book, “Life With The Afterlife: 13 Truths I Learned About Ghosts” ( Grand Central Publishing).
Bruni finished the book back in April and in the final chapter addressed the current coronavirus pandemic, stating that big national or global events such as pandemics have historically sparked more interest in the paranormal.
“I just recorded the audiobook, and honestly I was brought to tears by the last chapter,” she said during a recent phone interview.
There’s not yet a premiere date for the new season.
“Back then, we had no idea what was going to happen next, but I never would have imagined the book would come out in October and we’d still not really be in a safe space,” she said. “A lot of the energy we’re putting out there right now is highly stressful, and any time you’re putting that into the atmosphere I feel like that fuels paranormal activity.”
There’s a possibility that since the pandemic has slowed busy lifestyles down a bit and people are spending so much more time at home, they’re becoming more in tune with what’s actually happening in their own homes, she said, adding that this would really be a perfect opportunity for some amateur paranormal investigating of your own space.
“Maybe they’re starting to notice things they never did before,” she said. “It’s also a time where people are thinking a lot about their own mortality. Historically, that’s also what drives interest in the paranormal is when people start reflecting on the fact that, ‘ Hey, at one point we’re all going to die,’ and right now that’s constantly in our faces, so people do start to wonder what happens next.”
Of course, Bruni also encounters a fair share of skeptics in her line of work and insists that debunking paranormal activity is equally as important as verification.
“I was having this discussion with someone last night actually, who was a very big skeptic,” she said. “I said, ‘ What if you’re wrong?’ Trust me, I get it. I can go through life and have some slight experiences and say it’s nothing, but I’d rather pay attention to those moments — because what if they’re real? What if there’s someone there? I’d rather be talking in the dark and be wrong about all of this than ignore it completely. I always tell people that they don’t have to be a full- on believer, but just think about if it were you on the other side trying to desperately communicate.”
In her book, Bruni reminds readers that ghosts are people, too. This is important, she insists, as paranormal investigators communicate with spirits. While doing the “Haunted Salem: Live” television event last year in Massachusetts, Bruni said she and her crew came in contact with an entity claiming to be Lizzie Borden, the main suspect in the 1892 ax murders of her father and stepmother.
“That was huge, you know — assuming we were actually talking to her,” Bruni said. Her team did extensive research and found that after the murders, Borden began going by the name Lizbeth. They decided to communicate with the spirit using that name. Bruni said it worked.
“It was very intense and also a perfect example of coming into something with a clean slate and really thinking about things from a psychological perspective,” she said. “If this historical figure was standing in front of you and they were alive and you wanted to have a conversation are you going to lead with, ‘ Hey, did you kill your dad and stepmom?’ No, you’re going to try to endear yourself and have a real conversation. You try to think of things they identify with and what’s important to them.
That’s what we did with her and I’m hoping more investigators and people who are getting interested in the paranormal will take that stance that you can’t always go in guns blazing.”