c. 2008 Religion News Service

HUNTSVILLE, Ala. _ Do you believe in ghosts?

Michael Reed, a practical, middle-aged man who works as a baker in Madison,Ala., didn’t. Not until the night something in his apartment in an old house in New Orleans nearly squeezed the breath out of him.

Kim Knight, who lives south of Birmingham, Ala., didn’t believe in ghosts either. Not until her two daughters, then in middle school, ran into her living room, describing the two girls “in House-on-the-Prairie clothes” they’d seen in a corner of a bedroom. Knight has since seen the girls and other entities herself.

A 2005 Gallup poll showed that three-fourths of Americans believe in some sort of paranormal activity, including horoscopes, extra-sensory perception, astral projection and witches. Just 32 percent said they believe in ghosts.

But Leilani Catalan, a manager at Boeing Co., can hardly remember a time when she didn’t believe. As a teenager, her family lived in a house in Denver where locks turned, shadowy figures appeared, and room temperatures plunged enough to make breath visible. One terrifying night, something slapped her just as she drifted off to sleep _ slapped her so hard she remembers her neck snapping as her head whipped to the side.

“It was really strong energy, not like a hand. And there was nobody there,” Catalan said. “I never slept in that room again.”

Catalan began studying phenomena that no one could explain. Her mother, a Bible-reading, church-going woman, couldn’t explain it. And Catalan didn’t ask anyone else.

“I was afraid they’d think I was crazy,” she said.

So when Catalan moved to the Huntsville area and discovered Joe Slate’s classes on parapsychology she was delighted. A few years ago, she founded the Alabama Paranormal Society to investigate unexplained events.

Knight’s house is one of the places they are investigating now.

Slate’s classes on parapsychology attracted hundreds of students and abundant research grants, including several from the U.S. Army, he said.

“It seems like all roads lead to the spiritual,” Slate said. “It was parapsychology that first (in the scientific fields) recognized that we are mind, body and spirit.”

Slate studied auras, ESP, and unexplained bumps and noises. He led his students in using video and audio recordings and other ways to measure events

“Skeptics can say what they will, the believer can say what he or she will,but first-hand experience is the best evidence,” he said. “I see it as evidence that the soul does not perish at death.”

But old-time ghost stories may be dying out, said Alan Brown, professor of English at the University of West Alabama and author of a series of books collecting regional ghost stories. Rather than being passed quietly on a front porch, stories are exploding on the Internet.

“I think a lot of people want to believe in ghosts,” Brown said. “I think they take ghosts as evidence of the spiritual side of life, as proof in the afterlife.”

Brown, who is also a Sunday school teacher at a Methodist church, says he sees more objection to ghost stories in the South. Here, he said, ghosts are often identified by Christians as evidence of demonic activity. In the Northeast people seem more comfortable with the idea of the existence of ghosts, he said.

Brown said he sees no conflict in a curiosity about ghosts and Christian belief.

“Personally, I don’t see how you could be a Christian and not believe in spirits,” Brown said.“I think most ghost hunters are spiritual people who want proof. They want to know there is something after this life.”

The Alabama Paranormal Society will investigate reports for no charge. Most clients, including Kim Knight, just want confirmation that they’re not crazy, Catalan said, and feel no threat from the spirits.

But the APS team takes no chances when they begin an investigation. Before they enter the area where activity has been reported, they circle in prayer, calling upon a power they believe is greater than any on Earth, seen or unseen.

“Before the team goes in, we pray to put the Light of Christ in us,” Catalan said. “We pray we are going to be protected, and when we leave, we pray that whatever is there will stay there and not follow us home.”

These brushes with unseen energy have nudged Paul Matyi, a technology specialist for APS, closer to personal faith.

“It’s kind of made me seek more religion,” Matyi said. “I do not want to be stuck here, and whatever will help me get to the other side, I’m willing to do it.”

(Kay Campbell writes for The Huntsville Time in Huntsville, Ala.)

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A photo of Michael Reed at a Huntsville cemetery is available via https://religionnews.com.