Dustin Pari, of Ghost Hunters fame, joins us to share his thoughts on what ghosts might be, his philosophy of paranormal investigation and what he really thinks about guiding a ghost to the light.
Dustin is a great guy and a great guest!
You can get your tickets to Dustin’s tour at https://www.ghostsdoyoubelieve.com/
Thanks Dustin!
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TRANSCRIPT
Jim Harold (00:00):
Ghosts, do you believe? That question and more we’ll pose to Dustin Pari of Ghost Hunter’s fame on this edition of the Paranormal Podcast.
Announcer (00:23):
This is the Paranormal Podcast with Jim Harold.
Jim Harold (00:27):
Welcome to the Paranormal Podcast. I am Jim Harold and we’re joined today by Dustin Pari. Of course you know from Ghost Hunters. Ghost Hunters International, you’ve seen among other shows like Destination Truth. He is a popular speaker. I didn’t even realize, or maybe I had forgotten it. You’re also a medical professional, a renaissance man, and he’s on a tour currently and you can see him probably in a city near you. It’s called Ghosts: Do You Believe? And we’re joined today by Dustin Pari. Dustin, welcome to the program today.
Dustin Pari (01:03):
Thanks so much, Jim. Happy to be here.
Jim Harold (01:06):
So let me ask you just to refresh people’s memory, who may have known and forgotten, how did you get involved in the paranormal? I mean, it’s been a long journey. I think you’ve been into this for over 30 years, so how did it happen for you? It was a personal experience, wasn’t it?
Dustin Pari (01:24):
Yeah, personal experience. The old gateway ghost was seeing a shadow figure when I was a child. Just kind of planted that seed in my head. I needed to know more about it. I was terrified at the time, but I started just exploring, growing up in New England, exploring on my own, going out with friends, meeting people after work, and then finding ghost hunters and seeing there were actual teams out there doing this work and that they were there in Rhode Island with me. So that’s how I kind of get started with all this.
Jim Harold (01:51):
And the thing about you that I feel is, I don’t know, you just ooze sincerity and I’m not saying anything against anybody else, but you don’t strike me as the typical paranormal TV personality or at least kind of the stereotyping other black t-shirt, and I’m a tough guy and I’m going to get in and get some ghosts. You seem like a different sort of cat in a good way. Is that intentional or is that just, I mean, do you agree with that assessment? What are your thoughts?
Dustin Pari (02:26):
I do hear that from time to time, so I appreciate it. It’s definitely not intentional, it’s just me, just who I am. I never really fit the mold, I guess just to borrow a line from the Old Rudolph special, even amongst misfits, I’m a misfit. I just get through. I do what I like to do. I like to talk about spooky things. I like to help people through this life and I like to have a lot of fun and I don’t take anything. I take my work seriously, but I don’t take myself too seriously. So that’s why I can just have some fun. I don’t need to worry about ego or facade or any false bravado or any of that nonsense.
Jim Harold (03:05):
Now, what do you consider your strength as a paranormal investigator? What sets you apart in terms of what do you think you do best?
Dustin Pari (03:14):
I think I just tried to take a real honest approach to it. I feel like the tougher that we are and the evidence is always going to be the better the evidence will be. And I also don’t take a doom and gloom approach to trying to get that evidence. I’m more of a just happy go lucky little soul. I try to look on the light side of things. You don’t see a lot of it on TV because of copyright, but I enjoy playing a lot of music from the time periods to try to get better activity and bring spirits forward that may have passed away in the forties or fifties and this is music they were familiar with. So I use that a lot as a tool to get them to come forward. And I just try to stay really conversational. I stay away from the usual doom and gloom questions. I don’t really care to even to touch on any of that stuff. I just talk to ’em just like they were here with me now. And I usually get pretty good results. I’m very thankful; you can’t make them act if they don’t want to. They will. Usually women and children respond to me the most and I get a lot of jokester type spirits. A lot of people like to have fun and joke around. So I really think the energy we put out there is what we attract. And so that’s what I continue to do
Jim Harold (04:17):
Now. I grew up in the day, I grew up back in the day of In Search Of and the Unsolved Mysteries, I remember in search of specifically, we will focus on ghosts and we will focus on UFOs and we’ll focus very kind of a siloed approach. And over the years of doing these podcasts, it seems to me that none of this is maybe as simple as when we were all growing up, we thought it was for example. And this pertains specifically to what you do, the idea that ghosts are always dead people. Now I certainly think sometimes they are, but for your thought, are ghosts that people in these paranormal investigations encounter and people in hauntings, are they always dead people or could they be, and by that I mean sentient dead people, the spirits of sentient dead people. Could they be residual? Could they be sometimes time slips? Could they be interdimensional? In other words, are ghosts just full stop dead people or is there sometimes more at play?
Dustin Pari (05:26):
No, I think most times there’s a lot more at play than we ever give it credit for. I think it started out with everyone just assuming the voices that we talk to are people that are deceased. But sometimes now we’ve done cases where we find people lived in a home for so long that when they were a child, they witnessed a tall shadow figure over in their kitchen area that frightened them as a kid and they ran away as an adult in that same house and they’re in that same kitchen. They look over and they see a little shadow figure approach, look up at them and then run away. So then the question even becomes with some of these things, are we not even just haunting ourselves and the idea of time stacking and the plausibility of dealing with things from other dimensions or even just beyond our world.
(06:11):
I mean we so many of us use the different ghost boxes and stuff to try to communicate, which a lot of ’em are BS, but there is some ways you can use it with kind of a fail safe to make sure you’re dealing with things correctly. But some of them, I mean the original one, Frank’s Box originally was used to communicate with aliens, right? And they called him the purple princess. I’ve used my box and being up at the Hinsdale House in New York and you got this weird robotic sounding voice saying they’re watching us from above, refer to us as earthies all the time. And so then yeah, we start to get the question of are we talking with maybe extraterrestrial sometime? There’s so many different things that we don’t know, and that’s what I love about it. It brings back that childhood magic, that the world isn’t just so cut and dry. It isn’t just sitting in traffic, going to work, paying bills, paying taxes, and just doing the same stuff over and over. There’s still room for things for us to explore and to try to expand our understanding of, and that’s what I really enjoy about it.
Jim Harold (07:10):
Now for you, you talked about the equipment a little bit and we know obviously on the TV shows the equipment is a hot thing, but is there a piece of equipment that you hold in great stead, whether it’s a certain digital recorder, whether it’s a certain meter, whether it’s a device like a Frank’s Box, is there one that you think or more that you really think are the real deal and really a good thing to implement?
Dustin Pari (07:37):
There’s so many different things. I think the most important part is the way you use the devices. There are various ones with crazy price points and some seem to get better results than others. I’ve used some of the top of the line things and then some of my best EVPs have come off a cheap $30 Panasonic recorder that has been in my backpack for years. There’s nothing fancy about it, but I do think there’s something to be said about how we use the equipment. One of the things I try to impress upon people, and I’ve been mentioning this a lot on the Ghosts: Do You Believe tour, is using two pieces of equipment together rather than just, oh, I get this great EVP. Okay, well what else was going on in the room while you were doing it? Just set a camera down on a wide shot while you sit there and do your EVP session.
(08:17):
This way, if there’s any small little thing that maybe you didn’t notice, but when you go back and you play that part where you asked a question and you got an answer, maybe there was some light fluctuation or another anomaly or even better keep your tri field meter, your EMF detector in the frame of that camera. And now, okay, we see here’s the point where you asked a question and you see that EVP unbeknownst to you at that time your tri field meter was also going up. So now we have more than one piece of equipment working together. That helps to make any case a lot better in terms of evidence, a lot stronger case. But for me personally, I don’t hold any one piece of equipment as the end all and be all. I know there’s a lot of high price recorders out there and stuff people enjoy.
(09:03):
I just like to go out there and do my thing. I focus more on my spiritual connection than the equipment portion of it. Obviously you need it for home cases and television and those things to try to show things to people, but for me, I really just want to be a part of it. I want to be a part of it. And if there’s something showing up from the other side, I’d rather witness it for myself and feel close to it rather than have some grainy recording that nobody’s going to believe anyway. I’d rather just have that spiritual experience.
Jim Harold (09:30):
Why, and let’s assume that we’re talking about dead people here. Why do people haunt us? What is it? I’ve heard different things. Some people say something traumatic happened and they’re trapped; other things, they love the place so much. Other times they say, well, something sudden happened and they don’t know they’re dead or they’re afraid to move on to the next step because they’re afraid of some kind of punishment or maybe it’s all of the above. What are the reasons you find hauntings pertaining to people who have passed happen? What are the reasons? Have you been able to figure any of those reasons out?
Dustin Pari (10:10):
We don’t all have to sing from the same hymnal with this, and Lord knows my opinions are just my own. But for my experience, I, one, never believed anything to ever be trapped anywhere. I don’t believe that a loving God or goddess or wherever you believe is in charge of the gates of the afterlife of this particular shift would be like, Nope, sorry, you can’t come in. So I don’t think anybody’s ever trapped per se. I think some linger more often than others. I think that some visit more often than others. I’ve noticed in the 10 to 14 days after somebody passes, they seem to be around a lot more during that time period and then afterwards they kind of go away a little bit. It almost seems like a transitional period for them and also for us, to get used to not having them around, but we see them more often during those 10 to 14 days after they pass away.
(10:55):
But I always think of it this way too, Jim, I like to flip the question. It’s like while we’re still here in this life, we’re doing the same thing that we’re questioning ghosts for doing. How many times here we are still alive and we drive by our old high school. We drive by the house that we grew up, we go to the park where we had our first kiss, we’re still alive and we’re haunting our own memories because they brought us joy. There were moments that were special to us. So I think that when we pass away, if you have the ability to go to any of these places again and see them spend time there, I think it’s absolutely natural that we would want to do that.
Jim Harold (11:31):
That makes sense. It’s kind of like other worldly tourism, and I don’t mean that in a funny, silly way, but you have the nostalgia for these places. You want to see ’em. That makes a lot of sense. And I’ve been doing these shows, this summer it’ll be 19 years and I don’t think I’ve ever heard anybody explain it that way. And I love that. I love that they come back just because, hey, and I know we moved a few years ago and when I”m in that neighborhood, I’ll pass by the house and just see what they did. It’s like, oh, well they did that and I don’t know if I like that, but hey, it’s their house now. But yeah, exactly. That makes so much sense to me. Now I’ve heard people say, and I think you kind of answered it, but I’m going to throw it out there anyway. When you find a ghost, particularly one who has passed and maybe there’s distress there that you should help them go to the light. Do you think that –
Dustin Pari (12:25):
Absolute bull–
Jim Harold (12:27):
(laughs) Okay, that was the question. Please elaborate.
Dustin Pari (12:33):
I think it’s great intention. I think it’s a wonderful idea. Half of us can’t find our way to work tomorrow if our GPS died on our phone. Yet somehow we know how to get spirit to the other side of the afterlife that maybe we’ve never been depending on your belief on reincarnation or not, and people get a wonderful kick on being the hero. I helped cross this person over. How do you know you get some static on your box and makes you feel good about yourself? That’s fine. Again, we don’t have to agree on this. I just feel like I personally don’t believe I’ve ever been there and depending on, again, reincarnation thoughts for people, I don’t remember it. So that’s like me giving you directions to a gas station in Alaska that I’ve never ever been to. How the hell would I be able to do it?
(13:17):
It’s like, well, I told everybody, go toward the light. That’s great. We think the dead are really stupid. I think that came across with the whole Sixth Sense movie. All of a sudden all the dead that we talk to while they’re here because they don’t know they’re dead, they haven’t gotten laid in a while, they haven’t changed their clothes. There’s been no bowel movements. They haven’t gone to work. A lot of that has not happened that probably have clued them in, but they’re not still alive anymore. But here we are, the almighty living. And we saw a movie once that said, oh, the dead don’t know. They’re dead. So this has become our new thing again, it might be for some people if that’s what you want to do and it blows your spirit up, it makes you feel like a hero, go cross over all the dead people. For me, I’m just in document. I’m there to have a good time. I’m there to witness it. I’m always putting things in a good light and a good nature. I would be happy to help if I knew how to help, but I don’t believe we do.
Jim Harold (14:10):
Well, you bring up a good point. I kind of feel the same way again when I do these shows. It’s not about what I think. It’s about what you think and the other person sitting in the chair, I’m just like a guy pushes a couple buttons. But the point being that, yeah, who qualified you to be the one to move somebody over to the light? Do you have some degree? Do you have some real training other than you started going, I mean, I’m getting off on a tangent here, but I agree with you. What qualifies you to be the one that moves someone to the like? That’s always my question. Now, I guess to that end, it goes along this question and something I’ve often thought about: responsibility. When someone goes out to investigate, whether it’s a public place, they invite people in to do investigations or I think even more so a private home. Can you talk about the responsibility of getting into paranormal investigation? Because to me, it’s kind of like the bowling league of the 2000s, right? You used to join a bowling league and everybody would have matching shirts, our parents back in the seventies and sixties, but now it’s like everybody’s got their matching paranormal investigations shirts. That’s not to cast dispersions and tell people they can’t do it, but doesn’t some responsibility come with that rather than just only a good time?
Dustin Pari (15:40):
Yeah, no, you have to do things for the right reasons, right? I mean, that’s first and foremost. And unfortunately there are some people that just, I mean for some people it’s become a rolling party. It’s like, let’s go get drunk and do this. I’m like, no, that’s not the way to do this. Especially if you’re going to be going to do a home case or something. This isn’t just, if you’re going to home cases and you’re trying to explain things, you’re trying to educate a homeowner. This is not the rolling party that you want it to be. This is not a thrill seeking opportunity. This is a point where you’re trying to help people to understand what’s going on around them in their own home. And most of the times it’s nothing of a true paranormal activity background. It’s just other natural things in the house that maybe they’re not aware of.
(16:24):
Simple things that people get excited about and they want it to be haunted. And you get to sometimes talk ’em down and be like, yeah, no, there’s really nothing going on here, but here’s why this, that, and the other happens. But yeah, there should always be one, there should always be at least a level of decorum, the way that you conduct yourself, the way that you act in public, the way that you act if you’re invited into somebody’s home or to an event or anything like that. And there has to be personal responsibility, not just for yourself, which so many people lack, but just for the fact that if somebody is welcoming you to their building, to their home or whatever it might be or event, you need to be thoughtful of that. People are opening the door to you, they’re asking for help or they’re asking for your insight. There has to be a certain amount of legitimacy and respect that comes along with that. And if you’re just kind of clowning around and you’re just there for a thrill, then you’re not doing it for the right purposes. Go and do weekend event places and just have a good time if that’s what you want to do. But don’t get into the line of trying to help people because you’re not doing the right thing.
Jim Harold (17:28):
And you got to be careful out there too. I would think aside from being afraid of ghosts, you got to be afraid of the rotten floorboards or snakes or whatever it might, depending on if you’re going into old abandoned buildings and things. I mean, you have to be physically aware and careful out there, don’t you?
Dustin Pari (17:47):
This is one of the things I always say now because when I first started it was going into abandoned buildings and places like that, trespassing, all those things, which now I firmly tell people at my events, do not go do that. It’s not just for the fact that you shouldn’t be there, but yeah, for your own safety. A lot of these buildings, they’re not closed down because they’re haunted. They’re closed down because they’re unsafe. There’s black mold, there’s stairwells, there’s rotting floorboards. There’s a lot of those issues that you don’t want to get caught up in. Even something as simple as stepping on an old rusted nail or something and getting infected. You don’t need to be in these places. So go where you wanted, go where your asked to go, and always keep yourself in a good place spiritually, emotionally, mentally and physically, or just don’t go. It’s if you’re not in a good place for yourself, you’re not going to lend anything of help or anything of credence to an investigation. So sometimes knowing when to back off is also very important.
Jim Harold (18:45):
So let’s talk about, because I think there are people out there who say, I want to do this for the right reasons. I want to connect, I want to understand what’s going on. So can you give people some basic guidance? They say they want to do this. What would you say the next step should be? What should they do? How would they go about becoming a great paranormal investigator responsible, like Dustin Pari?
Dustin Pari (19:11):
Well, I appreciate that, but always try to aim higher and do better than me. That’s what I always say, but I think it’s very important to start by reading, read some books, some old time investigators and old techniques. Go back, research the spiritualist movement, go back to things from the 1800s, read about the BS and the nonsense of physical mediumship because you need to know what to look for on both sides of things. So knowing when things are not real is just as important, even if not more so than when things are real, because again, you want to be difficult on that evidence at all times. So you really want to educate yourself. Books by guys like Hans Holzer or John Zaffis, things that you can really kind of sink your teeth into and learn some of the old ways that are still very viable today, and there’s valuable methods in there to learn.
(19:59):
But I’m very fortunate to be good friends with Mr. John Zaffis, and I’ve learned so much from him over the years, but I’ve also gone as far as to read books from different religions. I want to get their different understandings of how the afterlife comes together and always being able to work within those understandings too. Because if you go to someone’s home and they’re practicing Buddhist or Daoists, they may not be the same as your beliefs as someone of Jewish faith or Christian faith. So it’s good to be able to respectfully work within those realms. So education is by far the most important thing. There’s a lot of great books and things out there. Unfortunately, we are, as a society of people that don’t like to read much more than a meme anymore, just tell me the headline and tell me if I agree with it or not, and then I will support it to the grave, but I will not research it at all. And that’s a problem. So if you’re going to get to this line of work, you need to do your due diligence, you need to do some reading, and it will benefit you, absolutely. It’ll benefit you tenfold over your time doing this.
Jim Harold (20:56):
Now, we’re talking today because you got a big tour. You’re in the middle of the tour now. By the time this is out, you will have hit my hometown, Cleveland. Actually, I think that’s, you’re in the Cleveland area right now. So welcome to town. Unfortunately I missed you that night. I have some recording and didn’t realize I would’ve been there with bells on, but next time I’ll make sure to get my tickets. But what can people expect when they come to this tour Ghosts, Do You Believe? What will they experience?
Dustin Pari (21:30):
It’s become, I think, a lot more than what people were expecting out of it. And people that have seen me and come to my elections before know that it’s never just about the ghosts. It’s never just about the evidence. Yeah, we’re going to look at some really interesting pictures. I’m going to talk about technique. I’m going to talk about theory. I’m going to talk about a lot of the stuff that I don’t believe and the reasons why so much stuff that it has been proven fake over the years and things that we can look out for. But more importantly for me, there’s an underlying story arc about how we are spirits going through a human experience. We’re not from here, we’re not staying here, but while we are here, it’s really good time for us to ask some bigger questions about where we came from, why we are here now, where do we go afterwards and exploring that bit of humanity.
(22:17):
And it’s still normal and so human for us to want to know what happens after we pass away, right? That’s a very human thing to do. But we’ve come to a point now where we’ve kind of pushed death away a lot. We outsource death. We don’t want anything to do with it. The HR department will tell you how long you should feel upset and you can be bereaved before you have to come back to work. It’s not a personal spiritual journey anymore. And so I’m trying to get people to realize that there’s so much more going on around us that we ever take the time to see because our world is noisy, it’s distracting, it’s divided, and we don’t spend a lot of time focusing in the things that are really still very important. The loftier parts of our thought process in this life should be about our own spirituality and what we’re doing while we’re here for each other, not just for ourselves, but for each other, always lifting everybody else up. And so that’s what, those are the seeds that I plant within the show, and I think it’ll be very important for people to come and take part in this. We’re on the road until the end of May. I think Memorial Day we finish up. We’re going to be heading down through New England, down through Pennsylvania, a couple of stops in Texas, and then wrap it all up into Orleans.
Jim Harold (23:30):
Now we’re going to mention again at the end of the discussion, but where can people go get tickets and we’ll mention again at the end too.
Dustin Pari (23:38):
Sure. It’s just at ghostsdoyoubelieve.com. So ghostsdoyoubelieve.com, or you can visit my website, which is dustinpari.com, and then you’ll see all my events on there both for the ghost tour and my other private events.
Jim Harold (23:51):
Just wanted to make sure we got that in there and we’ll get it in there again when we wrap up. Now, you talked about the afterlife and to me, of all the topics that I’ve ever, and I’m interested in all this stuff from UFOs to Bigfoot to ghosts, but to me, some of the things that interest me the most are things like near death experiences and what happens after we die. Because I’ll often say we might not all see a UFO. We may not all see a cryptic creature. Heck, we might not all see a ghost, but we all have to go through that journey of physical death. Now, some people believe that’s it. You take the big dirt nap and you’re done. I don’t believe that. I believe we go on. Based on your experience and everything you’ve seen and what you’ve heard, and I don’t want you to give spoilers I guess, but if you could tell us somehow what you believe in terms of the afterlife, what happens after we pass?
Dustin Pari (24:49):
Sure. It’s the question that just keeps on going for all of us. And like I said, I think it’s a very human thing for us to want to know those answers. I don’t want to skip ahead to the end of the book. I want to experience it all for myself, but from what I’ve seen, the back and forth that I’ve had with the spiritual realm, the glimpses that I’ve had, and for certain that there is more than this, which is very comforting because although there’s a lot of beauty in this world, like I said, I feel like we’re kept in such a way that we don’t spend a lot of time appreciating it. And that’s a conscious decision that we all get to make, and that’s something I’m focusing more on in my life now, and I’m trying to get, inspire other peoples to do the same.
(25:29):
You can go through this life thinking that death is going to come someday when it comes, that’s the end, and that’s it. And in the meantime, I get to deal with every stupid Monday. I get to sit in traffic and do some godawful job I hate, or you could choose to appreciate this life while we’re in it and be thoughtful of all the little things, the way the clouds look today, the way the grass smells today, your favorite meal, just think of this. This is a real quick example, Jim. How many of us, whenl we go to McDonald’s, right? We get french fries, we throw our arm in the bag and we just grab handfuls of these damn things. We just shovel ’em all in as fast as possible. It’s a much better way to go through this life, not just with french fries, but with everything: to savor every one.
(26:08):
Each individual fry has a different texture, has a different bite, has a different taste. Each day of our life has that ability to have those wonderful little moments where we can really enjoy something and experience something, but we’re in such a damn rush all the time. We’re just shoveling a handfuls of fries and we just keep moving on to the next thing. And I think even within the paranormal realm, we often forget how special it is to get something as simple as a glimpse of the shadow low level EVP. These things are still magical, and it’s amazing that we have been able to do what we’re able to do within this field. And just don’t throw out the baby with the bathwater. Don’t quickly say, well, I need more or None of this is worth doing. There’s so much beauty in both paranormal investigation, our day-to-day life, and then what’s yet to come for us, but enjoy this as much as we can while we’re here
Jim Harold (27:01):
Now on these shows, we love to have people share stories. Now, this could be, again, I don’t want to play spoiler to your tour. This could be something that is not even a part of your stage show, but do you have a story that you love to tell about an experience that happened or an encounter with a ghost or particular investigation? Do you have anything like that?
Dustin Pari (27:23):
There’s one that I don’t share too often because it does have some religious connotation and people automatically push away against that, which is sad because we could be of different understandings and different faiths and still enjoy each other’s company and still appreciate and respect each other. So I’m a Christian. I always joke, I’m not here to baptize anybody. It’s just my path. As I said, I’ve studied many of the great world religions. I found wonderful truths within them, and I find the shared truth that all of this is about love to be the most amazing thing. And I think that the most reassuring thing that no matter what color the prophet’s skin was, what tongue they spoke in, where in the world they were, the bottom line is about taking care of each other and about loving each other. Now, I’m doing a case up in Vermont for college, and in the fall we get booked a lot doing presentations of the colleges.
(28:16):
You do an hour presentation, then you do 45 minutes to an hour investigation. And this one in particular, the investigation wasn’t open to everybody. It was just open to the members of the drama club, of which I think there was about 10. And they brought me to this small little house, and we were sitting there doing the investigation portion, and it sucked as it does sometimes. It’s like going fishing. We weren’t getting anything. I had all the tools out. I had the spirit box going, and it was just one of those nights where doesn’t mean the place isn’t haunted, doesn’t mean that there isn’t spirit activity there. They either just weren’t there that time or they didn’t want to be bothered with us. The energy connection was wrong, whatever it was, it’s fine. But this one kid just wouldn’t take it, and he just had to keep being snarky, being rude, being mean, and these kind of people, often they’re dragged to the events usually by a loved one.
(29:07):
But this was at this college and this kid was just being a jerk. And so I sat down and I put all the equipment out and I was like, listen, let’s all just give it a try. Maybe somebody’s energy is different. Each one of us ask a question and then give it some time. I’ll signal you when to ask another question. We finally get to this kid and we’ve got no answers at all. He being a complete jerk and delivered it in such a way. He says, so yeah, in the afterlife, and they’re like, jobs or whatever you got to do there. And I swear this to be the absolute truth, this woman’s voice came through. The only voice that came through in the box that night crystal clear sounded like a valley girl, which was interesting. And she’s like, yep, hang out with Jesus Christ.
(29:47):
And everyone’s jaw dropped, and even the kid that asked the question looked at me, what the hell is that? And I’m always one to follow up. I’m like, I’m so sorry, but would you mind repeating what it is you said? And she says, yeah, hang around with Jesus Christ. He’s God’s son. Got to go. It was the most off the cuff, no big deal thing ever. And I was like, holy —, that just happened right now. And that was amazing. And it was one of those things I was like, I wish I recorded it because I don’t record these sessions. They just were entertainment of the group that I’m there with. I’m not researching trying to prove any great thing, but to know that that was said and to have heard it and to see the impact it had upon the kids that were there. That was still one of my favorite moments, one of my favorite communications from the other side. She sounded just like I said, a young valley girl from the nineties, like, oh my God. And she was just like, yeah, I hang around with Jesus. It’s no big deal. I was like, holy —. That’s amazing.
Jim Harold (30:44):
It’s one of those things where, to me, there’s a difference between, and I don’t know, maybe it was you, said somebody. So there’s a difference between a skeptic and a cynic, and somebody’s skeptical is just like, well, I’m not sure about this. Show me. And then there’s somebody who’s snarky and those kind of things. And it’s got to be kind of gratifying to have the cynic say, maybe there’s something to this that’s going to be kind of, and it’s also for me, we’re doing the Campfire show that I’ve done for quite a while. When people call in and say, I don’t believe in any of this stuff, but there was this one time… and then they have their story. Do you find that a lot that people say, well, I don’t believe in any of this stuff, but there was this one time?
Dustin Pari (31:29):
Yeah, there is that, because I think that deep down, I think we do want to believe, and again, I think it’s comforting for us to want that. There’s more, and there’s definitely a line between being skeptical and being cynical. And I welcome skepticism all the time, and I encourage people, the whole stage shift is about asking questions. And I tell people, even outside of this room where we’re done here tonight, ask questions, not just about ghosts, not just about Bigfoot and aliens, but in every part of this life, you should never just be like, okay, I’ll just go with the flow and what other people tell me. Question the hell out of everything because there’s a lot of weird — going on. So ask these questions. It’s important, but we can do so with being respectful of being kind. You don’t need to be cynical and kind of — on everybody’s parade. You can just sit quietly. You don’t have to go there at all if you don’t want to. But yeah, it’s very good to ask questions, but just be respectful and just at least be open to examining the evidence that’s brought forth for you and the information. And then you determine for yourself what you want to believe.
Jim Harold (32:36):
Before we wrap up, and we are going to share again where people can get those tickets, if there’s one thing that people misunderstand in your view about all this stuff, and you could clarify for them. They listened to the show, and of course we wanted to go get those tickets to experience in person. But if there’s one thing that people, there’s a misconception or something people don’t understand, they constantly get wrong. Maybe it’s a pet peeve for you, what would it be and how would you correct them? What would you say?
Dustin Pari (33:04):
I think that one of the things people automatically assume about those of us that work in paranormal research is that we’re all dark. We’re all doom and gloom. We’re all black T-shirts and skulls all the time, which if that’s your look, go for it. I mean, I’m into all that stuff too, but it’s not about death, I don’t think for any of us. It’s really about that. We like the death culture and there’s a whole death positive movement going on, which I think is fantastic. I mentioned before that we kind of outsource our death. People die at nursing homes. People die at the hospice center, people die at the hospital. It’s not like it was just four generations ago, but people died at home and we took care of them. And now we think that those people that want to talk about death or investigate the dead or spend time just hanging around cemeteries, I do all the time that I’m preoccupied and focused upon only death where that couldn’t be further from the truth.
(34:04):
I do all these things because I am so obsessed with the idea of life and our energy and our life force that we go through this human experience that we continue on somewhere else, and that I still believe there’s a lot of value in knowledge and learning about this process. That’s why I spend so much time doing the work that I do in the places that I do it, and around the same kind of people that are into this stuff. It’s not about death, it’s not about gloom and doom. There are some people that are going to focus on that, but I think largely for most of us, it’s about that hope, knowing that there’s more than this.
Jim Harold (34:39):
The stereotype is interesting because even doing what I do, I’ve experienced it. I worked parallel in radio and did this at the same time for several years, and then I went full-time to this when I was still working in radio. I was called for jury duty, and they asked what I did for a living. I said, I worked for a classical music radio station. They sat me right on a jury. Five years later I’m doing this. And I knew what they would think. They would think I’m a kook. So they said, well, what do you do for a living, sir? And I said, well, I do – and I made sure to mention it right off the bat. I do podcasts on UFOs and ghosts and Bigfoot. That’s how I earn my living. And they’re like, well, thank you for your service. You’re excused.
(35:32):
And I’m like, Hey, if people are going to disparage you, you might as well use it. But the point is, it is true. But the thing is, when you said, I think many people beneath the surface are very interested in all this, and why wouldn’t they be? Because they’re the great mysteries of life, but yet those who of us who come out more with it, I think we are a little bit ostracized. But I guess it’s a small price to pay to be able to work in this line of work. And we’re grateful that you work in this line of work and you’ve got a thank you very much. Big tour coming up or going on now, ghosts, do you believe, tell us again a little bit about it and where they can get those tickets.
Dustin Pari (36:18):
Yeah, sure. So each show is in two parts and we are on the road until the end of May. We got one stop coming up in Canada. Then we get a whole bunch here in the States, but it’s a two part show. First part is me up there for an hour going over theories, evidence, personal stories. And like I said, there’s a story arc in there that’s a lot about things that are a lot more important than just the idea of ghosts, but more about our lifestyle and our lifetimes. And then the second part is me taking questions live on stage. So there’s a QR tag that’s on stage every night and around the venue, people can go ahead and put their questions and I just take them live. I don’t go through them ahead of time, which after some of the questions I’ve received, maybe I should, but it makes it more fun for me. It’s like an improv act. So we get to handle all kinds of stuff. So ghostsdoyoubelieve.com is where you get your tickets. That’s ghostsdoyoubelieve.com or you can pick ’em up. Also visiting the links on my website, dustinpari.com.
Jim Harold (37:23):
Very good. Dustin Pari, thank you so much for joining us. I really enjoyed this today. I wish you all the best with the tour, and I hope we get to talk again soon.
Dustin Pari (37:32):
Appreciate it very much, Jim. Thanks so very much.
Jim Harold (37:35):
And thank you for tuning into the Paranormal. Podcast, please, as all the kids say, make sure that you subscribe to this channel, follow the channel, hit the notification bell so you never miss a new video. If you’re watching on video, I know most of you actually listen on audio, but we’re trying to get the video thing going too. Well, thank you so much. We’ll talk to you next time. Have a great week. Stay safe and stay spooky. Bye-Bye.
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