How Haunted Tourism Haunts You

Stepping into the cool elevator, skin tanned from the Florida sun but legs made sore by an unhinged roughly-one-mile sprint to a connecting flight home, I glanced up at the sweet flyer that my apartment complex posts at the start of each month. 

Besides its crowning glory - the comedic Pet of the Month column - several upcoming local events were highlighted.

One was a haunted history tour at the county historical museum. Another, the telling of hauntings and eerie tales of tragedy at nearby former military barracks, which had held Indigenous people as prisoners under highly-questionable pretenses.

These events were set for just the opening days of autumn. The color on the trees had barely begun to turn. Yet seemingly, "spooky season” had begun - along with the risks and consequences that its haunted tourism branch provides.

Haunted tourism may be considered a segment of the industry known as dark tourism, which involves intentionally visiting places with dark or macabre DNA. Think visiting former concentration camps and plantations, World War battlefields, or embarking on a walking tour along the route on which American serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer snatched a number of his victims. 

The dark tourism industry is worth an estimated $32-35 billion, according to one pool of private market research, and expected by that same pool to climb in worth to around $40 billion by the early 2030s (Grand View, FMI, Research and Markets).

With such a large commercial holiday as Halloween upcoming - a time which University of Richmond finance professor Tom Arnold has called a "marketer's dream" – and a notable dark tourism scene, several questions rightfully claw their way up from the grave: What are the dangers - and even benefits - of haunted tourism specifically? What ethical dimensions are involved? And are there ways that we can scratch our itch for the scary without carrying home moral dissonance - or an uninvited houseguest?

THE UNQUIET DEAD

Haunted tourism, as stated above, can be seen to be a subcomponent of dark tourism. With haunted tourism, however, one is intentionally visiting locales that are purportedly haunted. Such visitations may occur in the form of paranormal investigations at, or on haunted tours or walks of, abandoned prisons, battlefields, hospitals and asylums, and other places of tragedy or alleged haunting.

And by way of such visits, one might be putting themselves at risk of what is known in shamanism as possession, possession illness, or spirit attachment. 

When an individual dies a tragic death – such as in an accident, murder, environmental disaster, terror attack, war, and beyond – or has personal resistance around leaving this world, that individual's soul may linger here in the realm of the living, with or without the conscious awareness that they themselves are no longer alive. These are what we call wandering souls, earthbound spirits, or more commonly, ghosts.

These souls - if attracted to the comfortable presence of your inner light, for example, or wish to be around the familiar energy of people or social interaction, or with a wish to harm an individual, or for a number of other reasons – can find themselves in your field of energy, thus becoming an unhelpful and involuntarily-obtained possessing or attached spirit. Now, you have two or more souls sharing the same "life space." And you can imagine how complicated this could get.

One of my long-term shamanic training students, writer Mary Baker, has a son who is autistic and, at the time of the following story, nonverbal. Despite his nonverbal status, at the young age of seven or eight, he one day began to balk at the idea of doing his homework – something that he had actually loved doing before – in rather full spoken sentences that made clear that he "did not want to do this goddamn homework!"

Mary consulted a shaman on behalf of her son. The shaman informed her that her son was possessed by an elderly man (which would understandably explain his disinterest in doing a child's schoolwork). A depossession - a shamanic healing methodology in which possessing spirits are moved out of the client – was done, and the explicit sentences ceased. Baker describes the change in her son post-depossession as "night and day." And the most interesting part – her son had no idea that this healing was even done for him.

Other potentials for possession illness include schizophrenia and multiple personalities, notes Ingerman, as well as substance cravings, likely depression and sleep disturbances, a disproportionate sense of alarm in the older mind, and even really no effect on one at all, as I have seen in my own shamanic healing practice. Ultimately, my helping spirits have taught me that an involuntary hitchhiker like this is akin to having a rock in your body. 

And in various places, even where I could not diagnose explicit references to possession, references to the unquiet dead wreaking havoc among the living - and those that visit their dwellings - are recorded. The University of New Mexico's Tony Hillerman portal states that "In some versions of Navajo traditional beliefs, when people die, their ghosts, which are understood as their essence or spirit, can linger in the place of dying and possibl[y] cause harm to the living. The Navajo word for a ghost is 'chindi,' [also spelled chʼįį́dii] and chindi is associated with ghost sickness, a malaise that can manifest through a variety of physical, mental, or emotional symptoms." 

Ulturgasheva, in discussing the emergence of ghosts in the post-Gulag era, notes that among the Eveny of Siberia, arinkael "are humans who posthumously stay in the world of the living after suffering a violent death. [They] have the power to pull the living into the world of the dead, posing a threat to any who happen to intrude into the spaces they occupy." And we know that a ghost does not necessarily have to be possessing one to cause harm – their activity in a home or business can rile discord and fear (some of which could be illness-causing itself) among the patrons and families that dwell there. In my practice, I have even seen ghosts in one’s space hampering their ability to think clearly.

Abandoned Soviet prison | Credit: Grigorii_Pisotckii

But for some, there is pleasure in the pain. In conversation several years ago, longtime shamanic teacher Fotoula Adrimi, author of Sacred Mysticism of Egypt: The Ancient Path of Heka Initiation, shared with me that in Scotland where she lives, there are a good deal of hauntings, and thus, haunted tourism is "rife." "People are being attacked by these troubled souls," she said, "and say it is cool." 

"It is unfortunate that it is being encouraged by the media, as a sensation," she added.

FROM PLEASURE TO PROFIT

Beyond risk to health and home, there is another dimension of haunted tourism that merits consideration: the ethics of our very relationship to the dead.

There is a financial element (if not motivation) to haunted tours and ghost walks. In investigating just a select handful of locations, I discovered such tour tickets to be between $10 and over $55.

A historic fort that once captured my fascination sells tickets for ghost tours at $25 per adult, and notes that such tours often sell out, especially during the summer months and around Halloween. 

A former asylum that I discovered several years ago allows for overnight investigations each night of the week. The going rate is $500 for a group visiting most evenings, and $700 for those on weekends. At my last check, the majority of the dates this month, and next, are booked.

At yet another location, public ghost hunts of its sprawling Western facility will put you back just over $100, and reportedly host around 100 people per hunt - potentially amounting to well over $10,000 in the course of just one Saturday evening.

Who profits from this? The souls of the deceased not yet at rest? Or the vendors who open their doors to the dead?

To be clear, I am not attempting to vilify the aforementioned spaces (which, in part, is why I kept them anonymous), or any others that host ghost tours. I can't say that our culture at large has ascribed personhood to ghosts, nor been presented with the possibility that these tours possess their own ethical dimensions - in other words, people may simply not have thought about these things yet. And if the haunting forces are believed to be real, there isn't a consensus or (in my opinion) a universal single answer as to what exactly it is that haunts. That is to say, some may not believe that they are (or, in reality, even be) interacting with a deceased person, but a residual “replay” of a past person or event (a la the Stone Tape theory), the expression of “a force emanating from a living person”, or any number of other things. And those “things” may not always be deemed as necessitating dignified treatment.

Further, revenue from haunted tourism commonly goes toward the restoration and preservation of the hosting historic homes and sites, and can support their educational ventures and create jobs. Indeed, a study published in a 2020 Cornell Hospitality Quarterly states that “historic locations receive new ‘life after death’ when ghostly experiences are connected to them.” Understanding the horrors of the past may also (aspirationally, at least) help us to avoid perpetuating them in the present.

What I am attempting to do is raise consciousness to how we fundraise or profit off of the stuckness and suffering - both in life and in death - of deceased beings specifically, as well as to what percentage of the funds generated in turn supports efforts to help those stuck and suffering beings whose presence may have instigated that income to begin with. No matter how preservative or noble our intentions may be, this is worthy of thoughtful consideration. 

And seemingly, not all motives are pure.

Another longtime shamanic instructor and friend of mine, priest and former Franciscan sister Karen Furr, recounted to me her story of years ago visiting a restaurant that had a “resident ghost.” Unbeknownst to her, this place was a local and regional paranormal attraction - a fact she discovered only after mentioning to her server that there was a discarnate being hanging around. 

“Oh yes. People come here to experience it” was the flavor of response she received.

Being a practitioner and teacher of haunt-healing work, Karen sent the being “on,” and informed her server that they would not be around to entertain the patrons of the restaurant any further.

You can imagine the response that she received to this. 

Credit: Garrett Jackson

LOVE THY (DEAD) NEIGHBOR

Yet another ethical conundrum arises in the form of our conscious treatment of haunting beings.

Televised ghost hunters can be found taunting resident spirits, daring them to make their presence known or to answer questions, or even making light jokes with the beings at the butt. 

Even the language that haunted venues and organizations themselves use in advertising their paranormal attractions ought to raise eyebrows. Some marketing materials that I found in my research mention "phantoms lurking in the shadows," and include the possibility that you, too, can experience the "sensation of strangulation by a strangled spirit," be "touched by a murder victim," or encounter troubled young souls. One former asylum that offers investigations, which makes note of hundreds of deaths during its history (including murders, suicides, and at least one named victim of death in childbirth) and an unmarked cemetery, invites guests to rent the venue for their wedding.

Of course, not everybody believes ghosts to be real, nor ascribes them inherent dignity or personhood if they do. But consider that ghosts are people like you and I are, or even, if ghosts are not real, that the people behind the lurid stories might be. Then read the above advertising again. How respectful or appropriate do these sound?

I recognize that I am standing on the somewhat-awkward hill of ethical treatment for the dead, while we have yet a long way to go as a species in terms of ethical treatment of people still alive. But we are interconnected in interesting ways.

Nearly a decade ago, I taught a course on mediumship with the deceased to a group of people in New York. As part of the program, we did one form of a spirit release - moving earthbound spirits on. And if my memory serves me, upon conclusion of the release, one of the participants shared something that struck me - that she felt in the experience that she was at one time a wandering soul, and was able to move on because someone initiated a crossing-over like this for her.

Could you or I former ghosts ourselves? And wouldn't we want a little respect until we could make our way home again?

FRIGHTENINGLY-GOOD ALTERNATIVES

There are what I feel to be quality alternatives for scratching our itch for the spooky that do not necessitate risky participation in ghost walks or hunts.

Armed with my homemade chocolate-pumpkin smoothie and my curated Halloween playlist, I deck out my home at the start of each autumn with my most unnerving decor - which includes glowing-eyed skeleton witches, shadowy clawed hands jetting out from the walls, and multiple sources of chilling lighting. And while I cannot go as “all out” as my imagination may wish, with what I could accomplish in my previous home in Indiana, a young neighbor upstairs made the point of telling me that Halloween was big where he was from, and that what I'd cultivated actually made him feel at home. Someone besides me ended up being tantalized and even comforted by my ghoulish alternative.

Find your way out of a corn maze (and support your local farmers at the same time). Experience a horror flick from your youth - or a new one that you’ve been just dying to watch (but beware of jump-scares, in both entertainment and decor; for another shamanic reason beyond the scope of this article, I feel they could cause further illness of their own). Host a Halloween party with your goriest getup and hold a costume contest. Take a non-haunted history tour to immerse yourself in the rich stories of your home’s past. Or perhaps even see if there is a nearby sensitivity-friendly "haunted" attraction (Cedar Fair Entertainment Company, which owns the famed Knott’s Berry Farm, debuted its “no-boo necklace” at their properties, which indicate to scare actors that the wearer does not wish to be set upon).

Take in folklorist and former director of the Center for Popular Culture Studies at Bowling Green State University Jack Santino’s classic 1982 Library of Congress lecture on the history and culture of Halloween - perhaps while you carve your own pumpkin, a tradition whose background Santino illuminates. Or - perhaps my highest recommendation - learn and experience the advanced shamanic healing art of psychopomp.

The word "psychopomp" comes from the similar-sounding Greek term "psychopompos", meaning "conductor of souls." In psychopomp healing, the shaman aids the dying, as well as the souls of the haunting or possessing, in having a beautiful transition into the afterlife realms. 

We have already seen some of what happens when these souls are left to wander. Psychopomp work can help to remedy that. 

In the online limited-space Shamanism, Dying, & Life After Life workshops in October – one of which is held in a weekly format, the other over one weekend – we will explore a shamanic view on what happens when we die, heal unfinished business with the departed, experience a profound initiation for experiencing dying while alive, and practices and protocols for safely crossing over haunting beings. We will also talk about teaching the dying how to gain comfort and healing through shamanic journeying, explore where we personally may go when we die, and so much more.

A knowledge and practice of psychopomp healing is actually one way that I feel we can make haunted tourism more ethical. By approaching the spirits respectfully and safely, helping them to resolve those issues that keep them tethered here, and sending them on in a loving and awe-inspiring way, we can appease our curiosity for the paranormal while also being a force for good - healing both the living and the deceased. Perhaps the most ethical way to engage in haunted tourism is to take actions like these that could shrink the very industry itself - while leaving local historic significance and stories intact for those of us still here.

Credit: Garrett Jackson

It has been so long that I cannot remember exactly where I got it from – whether from the spirits or a "revelation" on my own…

But many years ago, in one way or another, I was reminded of the history of mental health facilities. Until 1770, London's Bethlem Royal Hospital, or "Bedlam asylum", was a destination that offered visitors the opportunity to pay and take in the spectacle of the mentally ill. Multiple letters attest to this, including one from a Swiss visitor in 1725: "...you can get a sight of these poor creatures, little windows being let into the doors...[persons] visit this hospital and amuse themselves watching these unfortunate wretches, who often give them cause for laughter. On leaving this melancholy abode, you are expected by the porter to give him a penny..." (Even today, one can be heard describing a wild scene as a "Bedlam.")

Such tourism extended across Europe, such as at Italy's Asylum of St. Anna and Paris's Salpêtrière Hospital, where "eager crowds" would flock each week to view neurologist Jean-Martin Charcot's "demonstrations of hysterics acting out their hysterical symptoms." The poet William Cowper, in a letter to a Rev. John Newton in 1784, wrote that, "In those days when Bedlam was open to the cruel curiosity of holiday ramblers I have been a visitor there...the madness of some of them had such a humorous air, and displayed itself in so many whimsical freaks, that it was impossible not to be entertained at the same time that I was angry with myself for being so."

And I cannot help but wonder if Cowper's words nicely summarize a bit of our complex relationship in the modern West with the ghost tour. For what I realized all those years ago was that engaging in haunted tourism is not so unlike engaging in the asylum tourism of times past –

We, the privileged living, enter into spaces of horror to entertain ourselves on the presence of suffering beings. We are more interested in satiating our natural curiosities and need for stimulation than we are with helping the beings providing this entertainment - even if we may be simultaneously angry or displeased with ourselves for our choice. We pay money to the "porters" to do all of this, and we tell our friends to try it. We can go home afterwards. 

And, imaginably unlike the asylum patients, the spirits can come home with us – the product of our understandable but misguided haunted tourism, haunting us.

© Garrett Jackson, 2025