About Sean & Beth Campbell Expertise As a certified paranormal investigators, my wife & I would like to help by answering questions related to paranormal activity (read: ghosts & hauntings) and the investigation of it. We can provide expertise based on current literature, information from attending lectures by authors of the subject and several years (and counting) of personal investigative experience, most recently with our own team C.P.I.
My wife and I tend to investigate from the standpoint of providing our clients with a true explanation of what they are experiencing...we do not go into any investigation expecting a house/area to be haunted.
Experience
Past/Present clients Various local clients as well as attending conferences held by published paranormal investigators.
Expert: Sean & Beth Campbell Date: 6/8/2008 Subject: haunted best friend
Question QUESTION: She would kill me if she knew I was writing someone about this. I have been best friends with, I'll call her "Anna" for 13 years. She has a very... dark past. Depression runs rampant in her family and it hit her, too. Her father actually killed himself. She was molested as a child and grew up in a swamp area that had a cemetery that had been "moved" by a gas company. In reality, they moved the headstones and left the bodies. She played in this cemetery as a child. I have seen her in "haunted" places. She starts smiling more and becomes childlike, laughing and dancing. I will spare you the rest of the description but suffice it to say that my best friend is a very creepy individual. She is warm and loving most of the time but is very, very creepy. The creepiest aspect of Anna is the fact that she has a thing around her at all times. She just laughs it off when people mention seeing a shadow that moves when it shouldn't be, such as across a ceiling when there are no other shadows and nothing that could cast a shadow, a black figure standing in doorways of rooms where she is, etc. If pressed, her face goes completely blank and she tells people to "drop it". I always know when she has been acknowledging this thing. Her entire demeanor changes and, this sounds weird, she will chug a half gallon of whole milk and eat as much rare meat as she can. Anna is lactose intolerant and doesn't like the taste of meat. I swear her teeth have gotten sharper after prolonged exposure to this thing.
This is a VERY scary thing. One night I slept in Anna's bed and stayed there when she went to work the next morning. I was awakened when someone put their arms around my waist. I at first thought it was Anna coming in and cuddling up. Then I realized how cold it felt and how WRONG everything seemed. It jerked away and when I rolled over, there was nothing there. Later, Anna laughed and told me it was okay, he just likes to cuddle sometimes.... and that I probably scared him more than he scared me. When I asked her if she regularly cuddled with a ghost, she wouldn't answer me.
I love my best friend and I am scared for her. I don't think that this is healthy and I am afraid that it will hurt her. She says that she has had it around her for as long as she can remember. She is 28 now. She isn't scared and isn't concerned about it. I am. It sounds so crazy and so weird and if I hadn't seen and felt these things, I wouldn't believe it. I don't know if it matters but Anna's heart stopped over and over again while she was being born and when she was 16, she did die for about 20 seconds in a car accident. She jokingly says that she was born with one foot on the other side. Sometimes, I think she truly believes that. What do you think?
ANSWER: Thank you for the question, Lillian. It sounds to us like you aren't asking our advice about proving a place is haunted....You seem to accept the area around Anna already is...But that you are more worried about her potential interactions with spirits. Therefore, we'll answer from that point.
First, there is no independently documented case of a ghost ever hurting anyone. Regardless of what Hollywood shows, any indications of people being hurt during a POTENTIAL haunting usually occur as a result of the person being scared (i.e. they trip over a chair running away).
Regarding Anna being a "focal point" of the manifestations; quite frankly it DOES seem that some humans are more in tune with the spirit world than others. We can't say for sure her past has given her some gift, but it is plausible she is able to be a "sensitive" and has simply grown comfortable with her skills...Regardless of it seeming unnerving to us.
The fact is Lillian, there are a lot of people that live in haunted houses, seem to communicate with the dead or have other regular and close interactions with spirits and are comfortable with it being part of their lives. Given that, don't worry about harm to your friend from the spirits, but maybe continue to provide support when needed and make sure, given her history, she doesn't manifest events on her own that could do harm.
Thanks, again, for trusting us with your question.
Respectfully;
Sean & Beth C.
www.Campbellpi.org
---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------
QUESTION: Exactly what do you mean "manifest events on her own". I just want to make sure that I understand what you're saying and that my interpretation isn't flawed.
Answer Thank you for the follow-up, Lillian, though we did not mean to be so mysterious.
You indicated that she MAY have had a history of mental illness. Our point was to watch out for her creating her OWN problems that could do her harm....But then having her maybe blame the "spirits". Just because there is no history of spirits hurting someone, it doesn't mean someone might not use the excuse of spirits to explain being harmed.
Thank you again for following up for clarification and and also for the nice feedback for our previous interaction!
