Reclaiming Spirituality

As we kick off this new Reclaiming Spirituality concept for a monthly post within Reclamation Wednesdays, I thought I’d start by resharing the story of when I got kicked out of a theater by a ghost. Halloween is just over a week away, after all. So if you’ve not heard this story, buckle up! And if you have, enjoy the revisit. 👻

I got kicked out of a theater by a ghost.

And no, I’m not joking.

Part of me wishes I was because it was not the most pleasant experience I’ve had. But if it wouldn’t have happened, I wouldn’t have this story to tell you. And I do love a good story.

It also solidified my decision to NOT make Ghost Hunter my career path. Not that it was ever something I had considered. But it’s ultra clear now that it is not my calling.

Here’s what happened: I was in Savannah, GA, for two back-to-back events. One was a coaching conference put on by the training institution where I received my coaching certification and master certification. And the second event started IMMEDIATELY after the first. Like, we wrapped up the conference and I walked my happy little suitcase two blocks to the haunted Airbnb where the second was held.

Yes. Haunted. The third floor had some stuff going on. (Like, the medium putting on the event planned to sleep up there and decided to come down to the second floor with the rest of us. Like, I heard footsteps above my bedroom, where the third-floor bedroom was and NONE OF US were up there. That kind of stuff.)

So, anyway, this second event was a spiritual retreat. It was a small, intimate group. We explored allll kinds of ways to tap into our spiritual selves. And on the first night, after a full moon ritual, we went on a paranormal investigation.

Of a theater.

And the spirits hanging out in that theater did not want me there.

We showed up at the theater where the paranormal investigation was to take place and, to be honest, it seemed a little hokey.

The guy leading the investigation was cracking jokes and telling brief stories while we waited for the other patrons to arrive. Then, he gave us a history lesson on the theater (complete with visual timelines) and a tour of the building, integrating placement of the historical events.

I LOVED IT.

I mean, one of my undergraduate degrees is in theatre. (Yes. TheatRE. Thankyouverymuch.) I LOVE live theater. And I also LOVE the buildings housing theaters. Especially old ones. The intricate detailing of the architecture makes my heart sing! (And Savannah is FULL of intricately detailed architecture. So if that’s your jam and you’ve not been, GO. It’s worth it.)

I also went to grad school for art history (which is another one of my undergrad degrees). So, history and theater combined? Sign me all the way up!

After the history lesson, the guy took us to the space where all of his buzzing and flashing devices were held. I made a joke about sex toys. (Because, of course I did.) And we went back to the auditorium to be divided into groups and assigned our devices.

My fellow retreaters and I were assigned to a group that would start in the auditorium. We would have 30 minutes to explore the entire thing — stage, wings, house, ALL of it. Another group was assigned to the dressing rooms, and a third group was assigned to the balcony.

Truly, I was delighted. I LOVE a theater auditorium. My experience to this point could not have been better!

Then we started exploring, and that’s when shit got real.

I had been assigned an EMF detector for this paranormal investigation. (EMF = electromagnetic frequency.) And the guy leading the tour pointed out a few places in the auditorium where cords were wound up below the floor or equipment was stored under the stage so that we didn’t think something was happening where there wasn’t. He wanted to make sure it was VERY clear that no trickery was involved.

As we were exploring, my fellow retreaters and I went to the wing of stage right. And it *felt* weird. Now, could this have been my own anxiety? Sure. But what happened next was certainly not.

There was an audio device set up that flipped through all the radio stations available to pick up really quickly, and most of what we heard was static. But occasionally, words would come through. These were not words that were associated with anything the radio was playing. They were like, over the top of the static and radio sound.

The medium leading the retreat asked the name of who was there with us, and we heard “Steve.” Ok. So we’re talking to Steve. We each said hello, and when I said hi to him, the static sounded a little more jarring than it had been. I didn’t point it out, but I noticed it. It sounded sharp and pointy, if that makes sense.

She then asked his favorite color and he said, “black.” To which I responded, “Looks like you’re in the right place, then! There’s a lot of black around!” Props, scenery, hangers, cords, costuming, curtains…there were other colors, too, but a lot of black. And again, the static got pointy.

Steve then called us bitches. And he told us to get out. Twice.

So we did. We left the wing and went out into the rest of the auditorium.

As we were exploring the theater’s auditorium, most of the time my EMF detector was not picking up anything. There was a green light and the reading was 0.0. If I put it close to my phone it would go up to about 2.4 and the light would momentarily shift from green to yellow.

There were a few spots in the auditorium where it lit up yellow and read something like 5.2 or 6.5. Maybe I was walking through ghosts at those points. I have no idea.

Suddenly, another member of our group in the auditorium had trouble with her device. The batteries popped out. So I tried to help her get them back in. The crew running the tour must have seen this on the surveillance videos because two of the three came in, including the guy leading everything.

We told him what happened in the wing stage right, and he moved the speaker thing out to center stage.

After he and the other crew member left, the woman whose batteries lept out said something and we very clearly heard “get out” from the speaker in the same voice that had called us bitches and told us to get out of the wing.

We all kind of stopped and looked at each other, and she asked the speaker for clarification if it meant all of us, the other spirits, or someone specific.

That’s when my EMF detector lit up orange and read 12.5.

So I exited the theater.

I feel no need to disrespect ANYONE — living or dead — by staying in their home when they’ve asked me to leave. So I left.

I hung out in the lobby of the theater for a few minutes and one of the crew members came to ask me wtf I was doing. When I explained what happened, he seemed pretty shocked and like he wasn’t sure how to handle it. Then the head guy came to see what was up. Apparently, nothing like that had ever happened before, and he was very apologetic. He made sure I felt safe and asked if I wanted to go back in but was super understanding of me absolutely not wanting to do that. I wasn’t scared. I’m just not an asshole.

One of the other crew members and I stood outside for a while during the remainder of the time, and she told me all kinds of stories of the encounters they had experienced, things she had seen, places where she had witnessed some super weird shit. And it was a lot of fun talking to her and hearing all about this world of ghost hunting from an intimate perspective!

When the tour was coming to an end, I went back into the theater to the spot where they handed out our devices to meet back up with the other retreaters. It was upstairs on the outskirts of the balcony, which is where a tragic story took place involving racism and a little boy who died in a fire. His ghost is apparently pretty mischievous and likes to play with people a lot. Not in any kind of harmful way, just like moving little things.

They had talked to him over another sound device in the stairwell, and when they came to where I was, they coaxed me to the stairwell to say hi to him. He was apparently really sweet! But when they introduced me to him and I said hello, we were met with silence. The medium asked if he wanted to say hi to me and he simply said, “No.”

The rest of that retreat was lovely and was the starting point for a lot of spiritual exploration I’ve done since then. I had put spirituality down and disconnected from that part of myself for a few years while I was heavily immersed in a very cognitive-exclusive space. In fact, I disconnected from a lot of myself while in that space. But I’ve been slowly picking up the pieces, reclaiming those I want to keep, and putting them back together in fun, beautiful, highly intentional ways.

Weird that it started by getting kicked out of a theater. By a ghost. But I’m into weird. (Not Trump and Vance weird. Good weird. You know the difference.)

Do you have any weird ghost stories? If so, reply to this email, tag me on socials, or post in Project Reclamation! I want to hear them!