Local residents flooded the Mt. Laurel Library last week to listen to a lecture from the South Jersey Ghost Researchers.
What they got was a lot of answers and explanations that differ greatly from the many ghost shows that are on television.
The SJGR is one of the biggest ghost research groups in the eastern United States. Its main focus is around investigating private homes for spiritual and ghostly activity.
The group’s director, Dave Juliano, said the non-profit group is in contact with 200–250 private residents a year across the Philadelphia metro area. All of the work SJGR performs in private homes is free and where the vast majority of the group’s work takes place.
“Sometimes, if we can talk to them over the phone it solves the problem,” Juliano said. “Or just a quick visit to sit down and talk to them or meet them at a diner to talk to them.”
The SJGR’s stop in Mt. Laurel is one of many across South Jersey this fall as part of a lecture series. The lectures serve multiple purposes. One is to inform residents about ghosts and spirits and to correct misconceptions about them. The other is to help residents who may have questions. The group also uses the lectures as a time to recruit new members.
After a short video, Juliano and co-director Marti Haines took questions from an audience of more than 50 residents, many of whom wanted answers about contacts they made with spirits in their own lives.
Juliano thinks it is important to open the floor to the audience so they can potentially get the help they need.
“If one or two of these people got the answer that they needed, instead of us going out to their house, and now they feel better, that’s a win,” he said. “That’s a solved case for us.”
The perception the audience got from Juliano and the SJGR team was that they use a much different approach from many of the ghost shows on television.
Their approach is generally described as gentler and more patient, something in which the SJGR really prides itself.
Juliano also talked of how TV shows portray locations as exhibiting ghostly activity very quickly and frequently, which is simply not the case.
“It just doesn’t work like that,” he said. “It also doesn’t show you that they may have been in a location all week long. It shows that it was 45 minutes long, and they put it together for one investigation.”
The audience’s questions ranged from every topic imaginable, including general questions about the equipment and tools the researchers use to personal experiences to joining the SJGR itself.
Juliano said the lecture series is the perfect time to recruit new members. He encouraged a few enthusiastic audience members to fill out an application at their website, sjgr.org.
The group is taking applications for new members through December, at which time they will begin a three-month training course.
