The Morning Journal (Lorain, OH)
A spirited conversation
We just don’t know how to talk to ghosts, says paranormal investigator and TV host Amy Bruni
Amy Bruni said she has learned plenty about ghosts through decades of paranormal investigation.
The 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 just outside San Francisco in Alameda, Calif., and says she had her first encounter with the spirit world at age 6.
Since then, she’s been to hundreds of haunted locations around the world and has experienced countless paranormal activities, she said, ranging from fullbody 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,” which will be published Oct. 27.
Bruni, 44, finished the book back in April and in the final chapter addressed the coronavirus pandemic, stating that big national or global events such as pandemics have historically sparked more interest in the paranormal.
“I just recorded the audio book, and honestly I was brought to tears by the last chapter,” she said during a recent phone interview.
At the time of our conversation, she had just wrapped filming a crossover episode in Northern California and mentioned she and her “Kindred Spirits” co-host, Adam Berry, had filmed several episodes of the show during the pandemic. 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 continued. “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.”
Since the pandemic has slowed busy lifestyles a bit and people are spending so much more time at home, they might be more in tune with what’s actually happening in their own homes, she said, adding that this would 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.”
Facing skepticism
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.
Whi l e doing t he “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.”
Bruni said that through communicating with hundreds of ghosts, she also learned that not all spirits want to cross over or should be told to “go to the light.”
“What if they need something else?” she said. “Who are we to tell them what to do? It’s not our place, really.
Honestly, it’s super egotistical of us to think we know what needs to be done. So instead of telling them to leave … we started asking things like, ‘What do you need? What is it that you want?’ Sometimes the answers are striking. Many times, if you put in the extra work as an investigator and do the research and spend extra time with these ghosts, you start to figure out what it is they’re really there for. If you can solve that for them in some way, or educate them in some ways, many times they move on or at least stop being so active.”
Queen Mary experiences
Bruni also shared her experiences at several of the most haunted places she’s endured, including the Queen Mary in Long Beach, Calif.
She’s had several experiences aboard the retired
and docked British ocean liner that now serves as a hotel and entertainment venue. She confirmed that it is a hotbed for paranormal activity.
“I stayed there with a friend and we were filming something, and the walls are paper-thin,” she said. “We heard two people having a full-on conversation in the room next to us. It sounded like a couple having a bit of a fight.”
When Bruni mentioned it to hotel staff, she was informed that no one was staying in that room. She added that seeing the apparition of a ghost referred to as Henry on the ship is still one of the strangest things she’s ever experienced. According to ship lore, this spirit is that of a crewman who was crushed by door No. 13 in the bowels of the ship .
Bruni describes the apparition as coming through with only half of a body. Though Room B340 is
supposed to be the most haunted room on the ship, Bruni wrote in her book that a lot of the negative energy felt in that space could actually be created by the people who visit it. It’s entirely possible that the entity experienced by guests could be what Bruni dubs an “aggregor.”
“An aggregor is the idea that a spirit or entity can be created by us,” she said. “We see it happening more and more specifically in a space like the Queen Mary where people come there again and again and expect something to happen or expect an encounter or something paranormal. They’re putting out that nervous, jittery energy … over time, that energy becomes exactly what people expect. I mean, no one goes to the Queen Mary and stays in B340 because they’re looking for a romantic getaway; they’re going there for the ghosts and paranormal experience.”