Hunt the Ghost Hunter
A ghostly tale of how a lyric came to be
Sometimes song lyrics come out of the strangest places. In this case, the name of the song is ‘Estes Method’ and the idea came to me about two in the morning wandering the halls of a haunted movie theater, a beeping gadget held within my white-knuckled strumming hand.
MJ and I had heard about a local paranormal investigation group giving tours of this old theater down Rt. 1. This is exactly the type of thing that I would love to do, so around midnight, we met up with the ghost hunter and a couple who looked like they’d shown up for the wrong event, and we entered into the bowels of the theater.
The lead investigator told us tales of morbid curiosity among the ruins of the nearby shuttered mental institution (there always seems to be a mental hospital attached to these sort of pseudo-histories). And he told us of deaths that had occurred in the theater (because of course people are always dying in movie theaters). And we learned about the shadow that stalked a woman down in the auditorium.
We also learn about ghost hunting gear. So much gear. Really, this is about the gear.
On this hunt, we’ll use these buzzing handheld things that look like wall-stud finders and which light up in the presence of spirits. We also set up this thing that resembles a Theremin and ask the ghosts to play it. We wander around in the dark and listen to words spoken by a sort of electronic Ouija board. And there is some sort of device that blinks and buzzes when ghosts walk by. All of this to say: We are having a great time.
And then, some two-hours into our hunt, a question pops into my mind: “What if the ghosts don’t actually appreciate our being here?”
I imagined being a ghost and not so much feeling malicious but more-so feeling annoyed by these intrepid paranormal gumshoes and their carnival-act gadgets. And that’s where the song lyric came from. I’d actually written in my head and committed to memory the first quatrain before we left early that morning.
Oh, and the title of the song.
One of the techniques we learned about — and took part in during the investigation — was what’s called the Estes Method. You’ve probably seen this before on one of those cable TV ghost hunter shows, but it was new to me. Basically, one member of the party acts as a medium. They put on a blindfold and a set of headphones that just play a mix of static and random snippets of radio broadcasts.
The idea is that the medium can neither hear nor see the other participants.
Then, once the static is buzzing, the other participants ask questions. And the concept is that the medium will channel a ghost and answer the questions. It’s called the Estes Method because it’s named after the location of the Stanley Hotel where Stephen King had a bad dream and got the initial idea to write what became The Shining. Apparently the place is now overrun by ghost hunters.
Well I’ll tell you this… this Estes Method session was the one moment over the course of the night that was genuinely unnerving. The medium had started speaking from the point of view of what seemed to have been a serial killer who had stalked the Rt. 1 corridor years prior. (I will later look up the history of the area and indeed find mention of this killer). Our medium was sitting in a chair and we’d all placed our gadgets on a wooden table in the middle of the cramped room. Sitting around the table, we asked questions and as the session went on, the answers became more in-tune with the questions we were asking. Mind you — the medium can neither hear nor see us.
Well, at one point, the killer seems to get annoyed. And the damn gadgets start going off. The one sitting on the table right in front of me starts buzzing uncontrollably and lands in my lap.
If it was a set up, it was a damn good set up. And I can appreciate that.
Anyhow, here’s the lyrics. A call to hunt the ghost hunters. And a few allusions back to The Shining — the book, not the film.
We are spirits We are not ghouls We’d rather risk the fire of Hell Than to have to suffer you fools Static radio And EVPs You can gather all the instruments that money can buy And still you’ll never have what you need Speaking through an oracle Knocking in the wall Somewhere between your ears You can hear us in the call, call, call We take over your brainwaves We take over your tongue Take over your language Until the words are done, done, done We are long dead Not alive Yet we are pestered more Than had we all survived Come in my house Try to measure my EMF Tune in on your ghost box Try to capture me in SLS We are not afraid To hunt the ghost hunter We are most inclined To hunt the ghost hunter And if you want to know what we think Come a little closer Poltergeists and banshee howls Our patience has worn thin as a veil Cover your eyes Cover your ears You won’t believe What you are about to hear We are not afraid To hunt the ghost hunter We are not afraid To hunt the ghost hunter We’ll buzz around and make your brain Feel like a hive of wasps The more you seek to know the dead The nearer to your corpse We’re in the photographs We wander your halls We’re known to the hotel staff And we work every New Year’s Ball We are not afraid of dying We’re already dead You can ask us all of the questions that you like We’re already impersonating the voices in your head