Not Fair To Disturb A Spirit in Pain, Explains Odisha’s Paranormal Investigator Sarbajeet

Not Fair To Disturb A Spirit in Pain, Explains Odisha’s Paranormal Investigator Sarbajeet

The controversies and theories surrounding Sushant Singh Rajput’s death doesn’t seem to end even as his last film Dil Bechara has received an overwhelming response from fans all over the world. 

Such has been the emotional outpour over his death that on the demand of fans, recently paranormal investigator Steve Huff has claimed to have interacted with the alleged spirit of the actor. Carried out over three parts, the videos have gone viral where the alleged spirit of Sushant can be heard talking about having big arguments with men before his death and also the presence of his mother with him among other things. 

Amidst all the claims of Steve Huff about these videos being completely genuine, My City Links got into an interaction with Sarbajeet Mohanty, the paranormal investigator and demonologist from Odisha to find out about his take on these videos and know more about the paranormal world. 

“Soon after the death of Sushant Singh Rajput, clickbait is on the rise. Many people are using it to their own advantage. As far as Steve Huff and his claims are concerned, since the past few years, he has been red-flagged by the paranormal community. It means whatsoever content he brings up cannot be trusted because he has faked multiple times. He was at the peak of his career when he was supposedly communicating with spirits of Michael Jackson, Robin Williams and so on. Multiple times, people realised from his live streaming that the voice they were hearing from the device was actually Steve’s own voice. After getting into the authenticity, technicalities, and manipulation of evidence, the paranormal community decided to red-flag him,” says Sarbajeet. 

“Secondly, if you would use a high-quality device to hear the conversation in Steve’s video, you can figure out that the alleged spirit of Sushant is speaking in an American accent even in Hindi. This is impossible because Sushant was an Indian. And when a soul speaks, it speaks in one language, not multiple. Moreover, the elements of the conversation have been picked up from the already available information over the internet,” explains Sarbajeet.

On his claims about the authenticity of his device, Sarbajeet says, “Devices that are used by paranormal investigators across the globe are tested for their authenticity multiple times. When a device is made, its prototype is given to the paranormal investigators all over the world for examination. But nobody has any idea of the device Steve Huff uses, nor does he cross-references his experiments. How can one conclude something like this and play with the emotions of Sushant’s family and fans?  No second thought has been given about what his family must be going through.”

Apart from Steve Huff, there were also some other reports about attempts being made to connect with his spirit. “Spiritual world is exactly like the real world. If we pass on the information by communicating with one another, the spirits also communicate and do the same. In one of my spiritual interactions in Ahmedabad, the spirit told me that he knows me from one of the older investigations of mine back in Kolkata. That is how it happens. Any spirit can come and claim that it is Sushant Singh Rajput and you cannot crosscheck because you do not have alternatives. Another thing is that we use 10-15 devices for these interactions like EMS meter, temperature sensor, humidity sensor, air pressure sensor, motion sensor, full-spectrum camera, during the investigation and all of them are used to document different environmental factors. Even if you successfully communicate and get to know the truth, what’s next? Will you be able to prove it to the police or government with any strong basis?”, questions Sarbajeet. 

He continues in the same spirit, “When such videos surface, people start thinking it is super easy to call anyone’s spirit and communicate for fun. But the real problem is you never know with whom you are actually communicating. God forbid if an evil spirit comes by any chance, it will harm you and torment your family and loved ones. There can also be psychological damage in case something untoward happens during such interactions.” 

So, what exactly happens after death, we ask him. “After death, the soul transcends to the spiritual world. Once a person dies, be it natural or untimely, we pray for their soul to rest in peace because the soul goes through a lot of pain due to the frustration caused by a sudden change of environment. Imagine you being suddenly invisible without a mode of communication. That’s disturbing. And the soul goes through that disturbance. That is why it is said you should not communicate with the spirit from your end unless you get signal from their side. Those signs can be through dreams, throwing of objects or any such abnormal activities. There lies the big difference between spirit investigation and spirit calling. In the first part, we investigate the already haunted place. In the latter, it’s an interference in the spiritual world. One of the main aims of our society is to remove fear, superstitions and myths by challenging it.”

Citing an example to explain the objective, he adds, “There is this myth that most of these ASI protected places are haunted. The fact is that the entry after sunrise and before sunset is prohibited in these places because of practical reasons. The place might be in ruins and a person might die or get injured if a stone or something falls on him. Now, we as investigators visit these places to check the authenticity of the claims of people whereas those like Steve Huff disturb the spiritual world by summoning someone’s soul.”

“In Indian society, there are three types of people- those who don’t believe in the spiritual world, second those who believe, and thirdly, those who blindly believe. Now, such people want us to communicate with Sushant’s spirit and discard the factual information. As far as Sushant’s incident is concerned, it is disheartening to see how people can be so unethical by making his life a public property just because he was a celebrity. These are the same people who do not bother about mental health or such things happening in their own house or neighbourhood,” he quips. 

Keeping the Sushant case aside, on being asked about the recent claims of an increase in paranormal activities during the lockdown, he says, “It is true that the frequency has gone up. I will share an incident. There was this lady who was stuck alone at her home due to professional commitments while all her friends left during the lockdown. She started experiencing weird things around her. I, and my teammates Pooja Vijay and Savio started counselling her. We discovered that there was the presence of a harmless, lingering spirit. But we couldn’t explain that to her. So, we told her to cleanse her house and take a bath with rock saltwater and meditate. Because cleansing a place with rock saltwater, or performing ‘havan’ etc., removes negative energies by purifying the environment. Then there was another case in which a guy was sensing shadows and other such things around him. When his case was investigated, it turned out to be hallucinations which were happening because of the leakage of LPG gas cylinders in his house.”

Sarbajeet firmly believes that it’s very essential to have an open mind and questioning ability. “You should not believe everything that comes your way. Rather, you should always look out at the practical side. That’s the basic thing that an investigator does and common people don’t when it comes to paranormal. For example, if a particular branch of a tree shakes, people say it’s a spirit sitting over it. But why can’t it be a monkey? Why always spirits are to be blamed? I have seen investigators spending half of their lives in this field. They learn because they have these two qualities tied to their lives. When we investigate paranormal activity, it is not from one 3D point of view because the entity is not from this dimension. It is so important to have multiple views and that’s why we use multiple devices that act like different points of views. When reading in such devices are not constant and go random although there’s no chance of any network or electrical disturbance, that’s when we conclude about a paranormal presence. There are many claims that people have seen spirits in abnormal structures. It is because the spirits also need lots of energy to manifest, or to do any sort of activity to prove their presence. That’s why it is so difficult to see a spirit in a complete human shape. It happens rarely.”

Currently, Sarbajeet is working on his upcoming books. “So there are two books we are currently working on. One is ‘The Spirits Talk To Me’ to be published by Hachette Publications, and ‘Ghost Whispers’ to be published by Rupa Publications. Both the books are being written by the best-selling horror writer Neil D’Silva. The first book contains the 10 best cases of our team till now. The book tells about the emotional side and the experience of the investigator as well as the client throughout the case. The second book is like a paranormal encyclopedia – 10 different real-life cases and examples like near-death experience, possession and intelligent haunting. We have also included the case where we had taken the star cast of filmmaker Vikram Bhatt’s ‘Ghost’ to experience the real existence of spirits at a haunted place. So, both the books throw light at the work done by me and my teammates, Pooja Vijay and Savio Furtado, and our foundation PAIRS,” informs Sarbajeet.

On being asked about his concluding thoughts, he sums up, “There is always an effect on the mental health of the investigators during any investigation and one should not neglect it. Like we are so passionate about our work that we fail to keep a track of time and space after getting involved in any case. My partner Pooja is so sensitive that she can feel the emotions of spirits and tends to get attached. Being the leader, you have to take huge responsibility. We often go to risky places and no one can protect you from the paranormal. And after every investigation, we get this sudden surge of hunger as our energies are drained out during those 4-5 hours of just setting up communication. We require a change of environment before it takes a toll on our mental health. Fear is a low-grade emotion. And meditation is a great source to deal with this disturbance and detach ourselves from the places. At the end, all we want to do is help and we will keep doing that.”