Asheville ghost hunter to give presentation on paranormal at CLE
With Halloween right around the corner, the Center for Life Enrichment is bringing an expert in all things haunted from Ghost Hunters of Asheville to give a presentation on ghosts, orbs, spirits and demons.
Ghost Hunters of Asheville owner Pepper Parris started hearing ghost stories about downtown Asheville at the age of four when her father relayed to her mother that he had witnessed apparitions but didn’t fully immerse herself in the idea until she attended Trinity University in Dublin Ireland in the 1970s.
“Most kids have some strange things happen to them, but they get pushed aside,” Paris said. “Later on, when I went to college, I attended Trinity University and was able to go on allot of castle tours. They didn’t necessarily have ghost tours, but you went on tours of the castles, and they told you about the ghosts. I found that fascinating and that became a passion of mine.”
Paris returned to Asheville in 1984, with a family of her own and a passion for history and the paranormal.
“I remember they had a program called ‘Discovery,’ in downtown Asheville,” Paris said. “Basically, the fifth graders would come and do these walking tours and got the history of downtown Asheville. I loved the idea of that and started giving these historical tours. At the time, I was doing copywriting for a radio station out of Asheville and the owner of the ghost tour company I have now came in and wanted me to write a commercial for her and I thought, ‘Wow, that would be such a cool thing to do,’ and here I am. She hired me on the spot.”
Now in the paranormal world, Paris began studying everything there was to know.
“People really are fascinated with a lot of the ghost hunting shows that they see on T.V.,” Paris said. “I was able to join a paranormal investigation team and we went around and helped people that said they were experiencing something paranormal. My degree is in sociology and psychology. So, adding parapsychology to that was pretty easy to do and I have been fascinated with the paranormal on so many levels, not just ghosts. I believe that there are a lot of things out there. Honestly, I think almost all of us know that we aren’t alone in this universe here on planet Earth.”
On Monday, Paris came to the Peggy Crosby Center to test out how haunted the former hospital was.
According to CLE director, Fallon Hovis, the Peggy Crosby Center Lecture Hall was once the morgue of the old Highlands hospital.
Paris used EMF readers, temperature readers and dowsing rods to try and communicate with whatever may be in the Peggy Crosby Center.
“One thing that I am going to show is the ambient temperature thermometer,” Paris said. “if I’m going to measure the temperature of, let’s say, a wall, and it is 71 degrees, and go off of it and go into the atmosphere and it would also record the temperature of that. That’s the ambient part to it. So, for example, if you measured the temperature of the wall, what if I got over to the other side of the wall and it was 35 degrees. You have to take into consideration airflow and circulation, so you have to several measurements to see if something really was odd. If there is no circulation or anything within reason, people talk about cold spots and actually what a cold spot is, if it is an intellectual entity, it will actually suck the warmth from a positive force. If you think you are standing in a cold pocket, you may be standing in one, but the entity could be standing in front of you. The general thing is that they say that an entity has sucked the energy from the area and an entity is in the area.”
Paris also showed Rae how to use dowsing rods, which are used to communicate with the paranormal.
“A lot of people think dowsing rods are what you use to find a ghost,” Paris said. “Actually, what it does is it determines a change in energy. If you are in an area that doesn’t have something that is going to cause that change in energy and these rods respond, then most people say that it is something to do with paranormal activity.”
One thing Paris is going to do in the presentation is teach people how to properly use ghost hunting equipment.
“I want to show people the equipment and also show them how to take the right pictures if they were to go out and ghost hunt by themselves,” Paris said. “I will also show them several examples of pictures that I have taken of the paranormal. With the large screen in the lecture hall, I will be able to show them good pictures of what I have taken and some of the things I have will make the hair on the back of their neck stand up. It will definitely make some people think.”
Southern Appalachian Ghost Stories is scheduled for Wednesday, Oct. 27, from 10 a.m., to noon at the Peggy Crosby Lecture Hall.
For more information, visit clehighlands.com.
- By Christopher Smith