Loyd Auerbach Pre-Halloween Special 2022

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Do you have any idea, Lloyd, at this point, what
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or how many studies are there that point to the
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idea that we, all of us, don't really die.
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At the moment of a physical death.
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How many studies are going on now?
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Well, I mean, here we're really only dealing with surveys
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that have been done. We're dealing with studying the patterns
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of people's experiences. So we are dealing with witness testimony
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as well as what we hear from people like psychics
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and mediums. But really, it's the witnesses themselves who have
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the experiences. And the studies look at the patterns in
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those experiences. We look for commonalities. I don't know how
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many specific studies have been done, because you consider a
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single case possibly a study. But across the board, since
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the founding of the Society for Psychical Research in 1882,
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there have been significant looks at the patterns of these experiences.
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And there continue to be that sort of thing within
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the group in parapsychology and outside.
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If it's true that we don't actually die... then what
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is science saying now? What is it that survives physical death?
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Well, that's back to the question of consciousness. And if
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you talk to neuroscientists, you may even get variations of
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what they believe or their opinion, because I've talked to
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neuroscientists who believe that consciousness is not even in the body,
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let alone just the brain. And then you have the
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pure materialist idea that that we're all just kind of
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like meat robots programmed to walk through life certain ways.
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It's all software and wetware. I certainly don't subscribe to that.
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You have people who look at consciousness being formed by
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the brain, but then coherent enough to exist afterwards. And again,
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you've got the folks in many fields saying, well, maybe
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consciousness is kind of out here like a satellite or
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cable signal. And we're the TV set. We're kind of
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the receiver. of that. And it's sort of interactive. But
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even if something happens to our bodies, like, I don't know,
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brain damage or something, the signal doesn't get affected. It's
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just the interface that gets affected.
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So plain and simple, the definition of a ghost is
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the spirit of someone who has died.
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Is that right? The personality of some or the spirit
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is a good word for that. We stay away from
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soul because of religion, but we are talking about who
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you are survives. The thing that makes you you.
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Wow. And probably most of us don't even have an
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answer to what makes me me.
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Right. Well, you know, and the other thing I have
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to say is that ghosts, there are very few, relatively
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few ghosts compared to the number of people who die.
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So we're also looking when we talk about apparitions, we're
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talking about the people who have not yet moved on.
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to whatever it is the next stage of existence is.
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Your years of research have given you some insight into ghosts, apparitions, hauntings,
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and poltergeists. What are the differences between these, and why
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can't people always tell the difference?
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Generally, most experiences people have, let's say that they see
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a figure in the hallway, They just came home. It's
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a little dark in the place. They see a shadow.
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They turn on the light. They see a figure down there.
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And that figure is walking towards them. Or they go
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to Gettysburg Battlefield. And at certain times, they may experience
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or see or think they're seeing the battle itself. Or
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they may walk into a house that they've never been before.
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And it feels really, really bad. And they come to
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find out that the couple is having significant knock-down, drag-out
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fights together. So... A haunting is typically a location, but
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it could be an object that is holding information about
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activity in its past. And when you see, if somebody
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sees a figure in a haunting, that figure could represent
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someone who's still alive. It does not necessarily connect to
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somebody who's dead, unless, of course, that was more or
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less recorded by the environment a long time ago. So
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we have hauntings on record of people seeing and hearing
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living people who just don't live there anymore. Or even
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in some instances, I have had a couple of reports
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of people who saw themselves and it really freaked them
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out when they saw themselves as that recording, as that haunting.
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So the thing about those is they're holograms. They're basically non-reactive.
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They're replays of things. Whereas an apparition could look the same,
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could look like a normal person that appears and disappears,
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but that apparition is interactive. It's not a one-way recording
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in that sense.
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As I understand it, just from things that I've read
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or seen on television or in movies, the poltergeist is
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probably not even a ghost or apparition at all.
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Yeah, poltergeist phenomena, it seems ghostly because it's physical activity
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that has no apparent cause. But it always revolves around
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physical activity, by the way. So unlike an apparition or haunting,
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not everybody is going to experience it. But with a poltergeist,
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if you're around when something is happening with a poltergeist case,
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you're going to see if you're looking in the right direction,
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you're going to see everything that's happening. And that's physical
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activity that's caused by a living person. It might be
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actually kind of a group thing in the sense that
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that living person typically is under significant stress. Um, although
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about 30% of the cases, it might be a neurological
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issue like epilepsy that can be related, but they're under
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some kind of stress that they're not releasing in other ways.
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So they don't have any other stress relief valve. And
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for certain people, they blow off steam. And I guess
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you could say telekinetically, they affect electronics around them. They
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have things moving around. We've had appliances go on without
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being plugged in, you know, so you have some things
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happening like that. Um, And when I say it could
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be the group, it may be that that person never
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gets triggered unless certain people are around that person. We
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all get triggered by other people in certain ways.
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And yet what you haven't mentioned, and I'm surprised, but
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it's okay. As far as I know, maybe I'm wrong.
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Aren't most poltergeist cases, don't they surround or take place
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where there are children involved?
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Not necessarily. Oh, about 60 percent or so are actually adolescents,
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which could be, you know, as young as 10 potentially
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and as old as maybe 22, 23, 24 years old.
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It's not just the teenage years. I had a poltergeist
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case with a woman who was 80. You don't usually
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get really young children. I will say that you don't
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get like five and six year olds as the poltergeist ages.
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They can be in a case, but someone else in
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the home is typically doing it. And we don't jump
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to the conclusion when you have teenagers in the house
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that it is the teenager that's causing it. Because it
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could just as well be a parent who's being driven
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nuts by their teenagers.
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So this is the movies that is making me and
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maybe others think, oh, it's all about kids.
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Well, I think Stephen King in the book and the
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first version of the movie, Carrie, kind of set the
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stereotype as a teenage girl.
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Yeah. Yeah, well, and then the sequels to the original Poltergeist,
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where it seemed to be activity happening around the young girl.
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Right, right.
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Well, see, then I apologize for thinking that it's all
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about kids.
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All right, well, take care. With the people who, the
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small number that have had this happen because they have epilepsy...
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A couple of my colleagues have studied that. Those are
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usually adults. That's not kids at all. Wow. All right.
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And, you know, as you know, there are so many
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people around the country who either look for ghosts, either
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individually … or in teams that utilize a lot of
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high-tech devices that are flooding the ghost hunting market, all
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claiming to help you come up with definitive evidence of
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an afterlife. I'm curious to know what your opinion on
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all of these devices are, and do they really work,
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and do you use anything like this?
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So first, I'm sorry I didn't get on the bandwagon
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early because I could have made a fortune the way
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that some of the manufacturers are. People are developing devices that,
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first of all, I have to say right off the bat,
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none of the devices, none, zero, have been shown to
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actually detect ghosts because we don't know what we're trying
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to detect. That's number one. Number two, some of the
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devices are environmental sensors like an electromagnetic field detector.
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Right.
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And there are different types of those. And we use those.
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We're trying to see if there is a change in
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the environment when somebody experiences something or in a haunted place.
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Most of the folks, because of what they see on TV,
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think these devices actually detect ghosts. Or if there's a
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high EMF, they don't ever look for an alternative source
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for that, or they rarely do. So when you have
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a device that says it's a ghost box, supposedly randomly
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scanning the radio signals and stopping, which actually was inspired,
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by the way, by Close Encounters of the Third Kind.
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that movie, if you remember Richard Dreyfuss in his car
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when it stalled and the aliens communicated by moving that
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radio back.
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Oh, that's right.
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Yeah. That was inspired. The first guy who came up
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with one of these things was inspired by that. And
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his original idea was to try to communicate with aliens,
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with ETs using one of these things. Um, So many
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of these devices today, they're misinterpreted. The electronic voice phenomenon
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is totally misinterpreted in terms of people putting their own
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impressions on what they think they hear. And we don't
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really know for a lot of these devices if they're
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really doing what they say they're doing, such as randomly
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scanning anything. There have been a couple of devices that
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I'm pretty sure actually are out there that actually have
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In their algorithms, because they have a digital tablet, like
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just a regular tablet that's attached to the sensors, I'm
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pretty sure that there's some funky programming that's going on
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in there. And there are even apps out there you
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can buy. And we recently got an email from someone
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who's convinced there are ghosts all over because this one app,
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which is a free app you can get for your phone,
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was indicating that there are spirits present. Yeah. it's the app.
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It has nothing to do with there being spirits at all.
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I was just wondering, do any of the manufacturers of
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this so-called ghost detecting equipment, do they offer a money-back guarantee?
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No, I don't think they do. There's a skeptic who
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I actually respect. I don't respect a lot of them,
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but I've actually taught a course with him by the
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name of Kenny Biddle, who has taken upon himself to
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actually take these devices apart And there are devices, he
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took one apart not too long ago, this was last year,
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called a REM pod, which picks up electromagnetic field and
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supposedly enhances that. And it turned out to be, when
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he took it apart, it was a $ 20 theremin kit inside.
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Theremin is a musical instrument which uses electromagnetic fields for
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you to play. It's been around since the 40s or
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30s even. And he said that probably the most expensive
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part of the device, it was sold for like 200 bucks,
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was the specially made case for the thing, the casing. Wow.
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Well, you know, as I'm thinking about all this, if someone...
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wants to become a ghost hunter. What advice will you
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give them? And what can they expect? And what are
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the odds that they'll come up with real proof? And
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do you suggest they buy any of this equipment that's
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out there available?
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So for the last question first, I'd say environmental sensors
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are not a bad thing to have. Because you can
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sometimes figure out using these devices that there's some alternative
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non-ghostly explanation. So, for example, with an EMF meter, I
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have found more bad wiring in homes than I've ever
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found any indication of spirits. And sometimes the EMF can
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actually cause people to have experiences that have nothing to
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do with the paranormal at all. So what we usually
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tell people is your best skill to develop is interviewing
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and listening skills. That's important because if you don't have
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a ghost story... And you can't go through that and
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then follow up on what they tell you. You can't
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be a good investigator. All you're doing is having an experience.
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Learn about parapsychology. Learn about what our field has found
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and our findings about all this. And know something about
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how ESP and even mind over matter, psychokinesis, play a role,
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even in certain apparition cases. So it's really about education,
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which is one of the reasons why I've been teaching
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classes for so long. in order to give people the
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skills to go out and be good investigators and not
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just rely on this tech, which provides you with possible
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evidence with no context. So if you don't know the ghost,
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I hear about people going into these places that they
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say are spooky looking or they have history, no history
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of ghosts, by the way, but history of something horrible
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happening in the past. They'll go in and they'll get
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EBP and they'll get all sorts of other stuff. There's
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no context. It's like maybe they brought the ghost with
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them if there were ghosts there.
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Now, for people who don't know, you just said EVP.
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That stands for electronic voice phenomenon.
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Is that correct?
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Right. And this has been around for a long time.
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People will say that if you go into a location
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and you have, I think, what do you need?
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Like a tape recorder?
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Yeah. And if you're using tape, like when it first
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came out, it was like tape, like cassette tapes or
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reel-to-reel tapes. they suggested that you use brand new, never
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used before tape. Just take it out of the original packaging,
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put it in the recorder, and set up a microphone
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if you've got it, and then just hit record and
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basically walk away. Or start talking to someone or something.
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Is there anybody here? Can you hear my voice? I
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want to know what you think more about that, but
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this is bringing us to our first break, and so
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when we come back from the break, We're going to
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hear more about the EVP electronic voice phenomenon. My guest
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is Lloyd Auerbach, and that's what we're going to talk
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about when we return. We'll be back on The X
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right after these messages. The X