(Original headline: Ghost-hunting expedition planned )
Vancouver-based group to help locals delve into the realm of spirits
Despite running a business based on communicating with the dead and conversing telepathically with spirits on a regular basis, Kelly Oswald, owner of The Oracle in Whistler and West Coast Mystic Arts in Vancouver, was still blown away when she had her first visual confirmation of the dead right here on Earth — in a North Vancouver graveyard.
“If I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes, I would have never believed it,” Oswald said of a recent ghost-hunting trip in North Vancouver with Vancouver Paranormal.
“I could not believe I saw it. This is very different from what I normally experience. This is not spiritual stuff. (Vancouver Paranormal scientists) are doing an investigation.”
Vancouver Paranormal is B.C.’s most respected paranormal group, using specialized equipment to locate and photograph ghosts.
The group is coming to Whistler on Saturday, April 23, from 7 to 9:30 p.m. to hunt down our mountain ghosts located in haunted schools, businesses and graveyards.
Oswald said there has been a growing curiosity about ghost hunting, illustrated in the number of reality shows such as Creepy Canada, Mystery Hunters and Unexplained Mysteries surfacing over the past few years. She said Haunted Trolley Cars Tours are even offered around the Greater Vancouver area.
The Vancouver Paranormal visit to Whistler will include personal accounts from group members about their experience of past ghost hunts, accompanied by photographs. The group will then set out to various haunted sites around Whistler to see how ghost-hunting equipment is used. The evening will also include discussions on orbs, vortexes and, of course, the phenomenon of ghosts.
Oswald said people can expect to see one of two types of ghosts — or both, if lucky.
She said ghosts with souls can be people who have not passed on to the other side and still inhabit this planet despite living in the astral plane. She said a ghost can be someone who doesn’t realiz e he or she is dead yet or has decided to stay because he or she is attached to someone here on Earth.
The second type of ghost is a residual ghost. Oswald said this soulless ghost is merely an energetic imprint of an event recorded in time which cannot be interacted with — simply a blip on life’s screen. She used the example of residual ghosts found on the site of the Battle of Gettysburg in Pennsylvania.
“It happens in a place where someone has become emotionally charged,” she said.
She was amazed by what she experienced during her ghost hunt with Vancouver Paranormal last week.
“I felt very foolish wandering around a graveyard at night,” she said, laughing. “They took pictures where there was nothing in front of them. They’d hold their cameras at full-arm’s length, so there was no chance of dust or breath. Nothing was there. The flash goes off and the picture shows this great big fog and then it is gone.”
She said the ghost hunter takes a picture of the ghost and then immediately r epeats the shot afterward to show something was in the camera frame for only an instant.
“It was so bizarre,” she said of her experience. “The sky was crystal clear. I’ve been intrigued by this, but I’ve never seen a ghost that closely before. It has never been like that for me. It is always spirit communications. My (friend) sees ghosts more like people. This was just like spirit energy.”
The Whistler excursion bares no resemblance to the Ghostbusters of the 1980s Hollywood film.
“This is a respectful group committed to creating communication with those past and assisting the dead to make the journey to the light,” Oswald said.
To register for the ghost hunting expedition, call The Oracle at (604) 905-0084 or visit www.theoracle.ca. The cost is $35.
