We See Dead People

In some ways, Echo Bodine and I were like the other couples visiting open houses that Sunday afternoon. We were neatly dressed, we had an itinerary (a carefully studied Minneapolis Star-Tribune real estate section), and we knew exactly what we were looking for. Unlike other couples, however, we weren't interested in location, price, or how well the pipes would hold up come winter. No, we were there to check out strange vibes, inexplicable sounds, white light, and clouds of energy--particularly clouds in a human shape.

In other words, we were looking for dead people--"just looking for ghosts," as Echo flatly told one real estate agent who asked what he could help us find--spirits who, for various reasons, would rather bang around in an attic and scare the bejeezus out of the living than kick back in paradise with departed friends and loved ones.

Echo Bodine is a professional ghostbuster, or "ghost counselor," as she also calls herself. A psychic and a spiritual healer based in the Twin Cities, she talks to ghosts, and often argues with them as she attempts to coax the more stubborn among them "down the tunnel and into the light."

Though she's been featured on shows such as "Sally Jesse Raphael" and NBC's "The Other Side," I discovered Echo through her latest book, "Relax, It's Only a Ghost: My Adventures With Spirits, Hauntings, and Things that Go Bump in the Night." Echo's otherworldly encounters were so deliciously odd, I couldn't set the book down. There was Bill, a policeman ghost who protected the women who worked in a "massage parlor." When Echo confronted him, Bill confessed that he tore down a shower curtain out of anger when he realized a john was a priest.

On another ghostbusting, Echo met a female spirit who had such a crush on a guy (living) that whenever he brought a woman home, the ghost would slap him silly and throw him against a wall. Best of all, the guy was six-foot-three and enjoyed being tossed around by a jealous wraith! To his landlady's dismay, he insisted that if Echo busted his ghost, he'd move. Ultimately, man and ghost remained united.

Wow, I thought, the dead are just as screwed up as the living.

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