“The spectre's voice disturbed the very marrow in his bones.”

– Charles Dickens, “Stave I: Marley's Ghost,” A Christmas Carol, 1843

A first-hand glimpse into the unknown sparked Kim Hadfield Verheul's interest.

She started Halton Paranormal just for fun and her own interest.

“I was photographing abandoned buildings and went home to look at my photos, and found a shadow in the top window. I went back to see if I could recreate it. I thought it was a curtain or a broken glass. I could not recreate this picture. I told a few friends and they were interested so we went out one night, posted it on Facebook and we soon became a hit.”

Like many eager investigators, Hadfield Verheul was anxious to see something concrete and experience “demons” and other paranormal phenomenon. She soon realized there are many dimensions out there and there's a host of

“interdimensional beings” travelling back and forth.

“They come here to feed off our energy,” she said.

This can bring some unwanted consequences. Hadfield Verheul has witnessed “darkness” and seen an investigator being “taken over” by an entity.

“I watched in complete darkness as this darker than dark being approach him. Our investigator was asking for help, he almost fell down the stairs at one point.

It truly shook him to the bone. It was as if he was drawn into their world. I pulled him back. Some people call these entities ‘shadow people,' I call them the ‘dark ones.' I now deal more with these beings as they are truly great teachers.”

We are constantly emitting energy, good and bad. The living are contributing to a force that can be felt by others.

Some people, Hadfield Verheul argued, feel residual energy being left behind from the living. People who are living a life of abuse, addiction, illness, or who are just plain negative will leave behind energy that is very negative. It will feel like dread and heaviness and people who are experiencing it may trace it to demons and negative spirits.

“I believe everything that is our ego (our thoughts and beliefs) are left behind when we pass and that is what the living are feeling.”

You cannot destroy energy, and whether you are dead or living you leave behind traces of yourself, she contends.

“It plays itself out over and over again; people can feel it, hear it and will experience ‘symptoms' of that energy. Let's say you buy a house and the people

in that house previously were abusive and angry, or a tragedy took place in that home. They move out and you move in but traces of that energy stay in that atmosphere. You, as the new owner will feel and experience that energy. Many people believe they are experiencing a demon or a ‘ghost.' All they really need to realize is that they are living inside the energy of the previous owner so they should cleanse their new home and make the energy in it their own.”

In her view, when we die, our spirit returns to that “unconditional loving energy of the universe” and we become one again.

“We come back in the form of how we were so that we are recognized by our loved ones. Harming and scaring them is forbidden as we are just love. Apparitions are just brief sightings of our loved ones.”

Investigators use many tools to uncover the paranormal, but Hadfield Verheul said we should be using our five and six senses instead.

Do spirits exist? Yes, according to Hadfield Verheul.

She pointed to an incident when she was nine years old in the hospital. She saw her deceased grandfather and ever since she just needed to know more about the next level of existence.

She doesn't think our spirits remain after we pass away.

“We all return home.”

She practices Buddhism now, and believes in karma. She has become a healer and helps people with physical and emotional pain.

“We tend to have an irrational fear of the unknown. I have overcome many things from my time ghost hunting. There is nothing to fear.”

But, she said there are interdimensional beings who come in and out to prey on our fears our negativity. “The point is to face them, be a loving being and they will disappear. All of these beings have much to teach us, there is nothing to fear.”

After all of her experiences, Hadfield Verheul has a greater sense of peace and doesn't fear death.

“Live life to the fullest, live in the moment and most of all harm no one. That is what I have learned, from sitting in abandoned houses and helping people with their paranormal encounters.

“I would like to educate people that ghosts and spirits, whatever you want to call them, are not harmful, they have much to teach us. If we could educate people that this is part of history, part of who you are and the spirits will not be disrupted or get angry, it would make it much easier for us to continue with our passion for it.”

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