Some groups are adamant that you can never be hurt from paranormal entities. I disagree with that statement. In this field, one cannot make blanke statements. There’s always a gray area, and all possibilities exist. Sadly, we have dealt with people who have indeed been impacted by paranormal entities. But I must be honest, it is rare.

Ghosts

Now, I can make a statement here. “Ghosts will never, ever hurt you.” I stand 100% by this statement because we recognize the word “ghost” as being a residual energy – one without thought, without awareness of the living or its surroundings, and without any ability to interact with the living. Since residual energy cannot interact with the living, they cannot directly injure a living person.

Now that does not mean a ghost (as we use the word) cannot indirectly cause harm. Say you see a residual haunting that is traumatic; you may attempt to flee and injure yourself on the account of being hysterical. You can stub your toe all the way to falling down a flight of stairs – there physical injury can occur – but it was not the ghost itself.

One thing to think about is the emotional aspect of a residual haunting. If you happen to see a traumatic residual haunting, that may impact your emotional health. Is that directly from the residual energy, no, but it is an indirect result of the image or sound that you hear.

Spirits

Yes, they can hurt you both emotionally and physically. It is rare, but it can happen.  Sometimes their harm is unintentional as a result of a frenzied state. Sometimes spirits may not realize that what they did impacted a living person. I don’t want to alarm anyone – I want to be clear, it does happen, but it is not common.

Some people can feel that they are pushed, tripped, scratched, burned, or objects seemingly thrown at them. But with anything paranormal, one must rule out other possibilities before thinking of the paranormal. Most feelings of being pushed or tripped are actually crooked floors or stairs that are not level, or consistent in their rise or width. Many scratches at night are caused by us, not a paranormal entity.

There are malevolent spirits that are around that can cause both physical and emotional harm. A malevolent spirit is a spirit of a human who died that was perhaps a bit too angry or criminal in their lives. Since spirits maintain their personality when they were alive, there are spirits who intentionally cause harm to others out of revenge or their pleasure. We have worked with people who have had traumatic experiences with malevolent spirits who caused them great harm both emotionally and physically. We have dealt with several people who feel that they are getting choked, with witnesses actually seeing their necks constricting or hand-marks after the fact.

As for the unintentional sometimes their actions can cause scratches if they are distraught enough or throw a bit of a tantrum. Some cases their intent to “push” to gain attention was a bit too hard or happened when someone was not braced for it – how does one brace for an invisible push?

Demons

Most definitely yes – physically and psychologically. They want to destroy lives and as such they can cause significant psychological damage first and foremost and move on to physical attacks. Demons are very dangerous and should be avoided at all costs.

Poltergeists

Usually injuries are limited to the focus of the poltergeist activity. Psychologically, the focus already has emotional problems that cause the activity to begin. But physically speaking, some level of injury can occur in some genuine poltergeist activity.

So, while harm can happen, it is rare, and most of the harm comes from our recklessness in fleeing or from our own feelings when we experience what we think is paranormal. Bottom line – we cannot say that harm will not happen – that is just not true. But we will say that it is unlikely.  One thing we preach is to trust your instinct – it is an amazing defense mechanism. Like the old saying  … it is better to be safe than sorry.