Barri Ghai Calls For "Help!" After Experiencing A Haunting At His Own House
August 20, 2019 6:00 AM ‐ Paranormal • Television • Long Reads
Barri Ghai, star of the television ghost hunting show 'Help! My House Is Haunted' has been forced to enlist the help of his co-star, psychic Chris Fleming after something sinister seemed to have followed him home from an episode shoot.
Barri is himself used to being called to properties by their owners when they think something odd is going on, but recently he's found himself calling for 'help!' after his family started experiencing paranormal activity at their home.
The British ghost hunter has been filming a second series of 'Help! My House Is Haunted', which will air on UKTV's Really channel in November. Speaking exclusively to Higgypop, Barri told us that while he's been away filming, his wife and daughters started to see and hear unexplained phenomenon around their home.
Eventually, Barri was forced to call his on-screen fellow investigator and psychic Chris, who was at home in Chicago. Together with Chris on loud speaker, Barri performed a blessing and cleansing ritual around his house in order to drive the troublesome entities away.
"It was like 'Help! My House Is Haunted' in my house."
More From 'Help! My House Is Haunted'
You can read more and the team's investigations on our 'Help! My House Is Haunted' hub, where you'll find detailed reviews of each episode, trivia quizzes and news on future episodes.
Of course Barri is no stranger to paranormal activity, he told us "I've grown up in haunted houses and I've experienced all sorts of things that have lead me to do what I do now". He lives with his wife and seven daughters, who are also pretty level-headed when it comes to the paranormal.
Barri, who is also the founder of The Ghostfinder Paranormal Society, said "I do the job I do, but I don't necessarily go home with thoughts that I'm going to have a spirit attachment or something plaguing my home."
The ghost hunter said that it had all started while he was away filming 12 new episodes of the show. While he was working, something was unsettling his wife and daughters at the house they've lived in for the last five years.
Barri said, "they were telling me that there were some strange things happening in the house". Barri described the activity as being like first-stage poltergeist activity. The girls told him they'd heard unexplained knocks and bangs coming from bedrooms and ceilings, especially the attic space.
He said, "the girls and my wife were saying that there was really weird knockings, not like animals sounds, but like someone knocking to communicate with them."
Things then stepped up a gear when his eldest daughter told him that she had felt something slap her one night while she was trying to get to sleep. According to Barri, she told him she was slapped in the centre of her forehead, but when she looked around there was no one there. She felt so unsettled by what had happened that she went to sleep in one of her sister's rooms.
Barri said, "Lucy had been experiencing lots of things in the house for weeks which I palmed off and actually blamed her for. I made out that her dabbling with cards, crystals and other spiritual tools perhaps unleashed spirits into our home."
At one point, Barri received a call from Lucy during the night. "She said there was some knocking going on again in the attic," he recalls, "she said she heard this almighty crash that woke everybody up, it was like something heavy had fallen in the attic." According to his wife, whatever had fallen was now resting on the attic's hatch and causing it to bow and bend under the pressure.
Barri said that his wife had told him over the phone that "there's something going on in the house," she described the presence as "something is watching us and trying to scare us." Barri tried to reassure them all it was fine, but upon returning home thought he should find out what was going on in his attic.
Like most people's attic, Barri said his is full of halloween and Christmas decorations, and was worried that something might have fallen on to the hatch in the ceiling. So, he carefully opened the trapdoor, assuming whatever was on the door would fall out, but there was nothing on top of it.
He recalled, "I turned the light on and there was nothing up there that had fallen, everything was exactly where it was." Once again he reassured his family, "there was no evidence of squirrels or rats or anything like that, I'm trying to be as logical as I can."
Knowing Lucy would blame him if something malevolent had found its way into the house, Barri tried to downplay their fears to avoid scaring anyone and to avoid having to admit that he may have been responsible for the infestation, "I actually dismissed her claims and made out that it was nothing to worry about or she may have been imagining things."
While Barri was away, Lucy was left to bravely deal with these terrifying experiences, which included something growl in her face, unexplained banging, knocking, strange psychic visions and even seeing shadows and things moving.
Meanwhile, Barri had begun to secretly stockpile white sage, holy water, candles and other spiritual cleansing tools, in the hopes he'd be able to resolve it without it causing any more of an issue.
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However, Barri was forced to take further action when the activity became even more intense. Barri said, "one of my daughters came running downstairs and she told me she could hear someone thumping above her bed." This is made even creepier by the fact that she sleeps on the top bunk, so the sounds which were directly above her head were just inches from her face as she lay in bed.
Before Barri managed to get upstairs to investigate, his eldest daughter came in to tell him that a trinket that had been hanging in her bedroom "came off the wall in front of her, like it was thrown from the wall across the room."
Barri said that the object, which was a small bag of lavender bag that contained some magical herbs for protection, doesn't get blown around by draughts or by the door opening or closing. He said, "there's no logical explanation" as to why it would suddenly fall off the nail it was hanging on. Barri also thought it was worrying that two of his daughters had independently said something had happened to them at the same time.
On top of all of this Barri's youngest daughter seemed to be picking up on something that was terrifying her. He said the two-year-old "would look and point and say 'scary, scary'. She'd be pointing down and she called it a dog."
Barri said, "she could see something that wasn't there and no one else could see it, not even her twin sister."
At this point Barri's wife said "I told you" and blamed him for the activity. So Barri decided to do something about it, "I said I'm going to do the blessing we would normally do on the show and I'll go round the house and I'll bless the house."
Lucy and some of her friends had already bravely cleansed the house themselves using prayer, sage and salts. This seemed to work temporarily and it was only after Barri returned home that things started to happen again.
"I got my kit out. I got my holy water, I got my sage, and I got the prayers of the dead that Chris reads out on the show," Barri said. It just so happened that Barri had a bottle of holy water to hand as he'd needed some for a case he was investigating as part of the new series and obtained some from a Catholic church.
Barri recalls, "I blessed the house myself, but then I thought I'd ring Chris. I said 'hey buddy, I need your help'."
Barri put Chris on speaker phone and they went around the house reading prayers for the dead. Barri joked, "it was like 'Help! My House Is Haunted' in my house."
He used white sage to smudge the house and used the holy water, "I read some versus for protection from any negative entities or attachments to try to cleanse the property." He also left some black salt and holy water in the attic.
But that wasn't the end of it, Barri said, "after I'd finished, I was stood in the hallway finishing off and I heard a DVP." A DVP, or Direct Voice Phenomenon is an audible voice or sound that can be heard without the need for ghost hunting equipment or electronic devices.
He said, "I heard something in my ear that no one else heard that didn't sound like human spirits. It was like two voices together and said something like 'you're burning me'."
After the incident Barri said, "my whole take on this is that I had little goblins in my house." He explains that by this he means imps, "they're responsible for the mischievousness and sometimes the 'light evil' that you might have."
These mischievous supernatural entities are "classified as elementals," he said, "despite being the demons' wrong-doers, they are also Earth spirits."
Barri thinks he encountered the imps while away filming the first four episodes of the new series, "I don't know where I picked it up from or what happened, but either way it was mine and Chris' opinion that whatever was in my house was there to scare my family and kids because it couldn't affect me."
As more of a technical investigator, Barri said "I've never really truly believed in the spiritual cleansing and the powers of blessing a house," after all this is Chris' role in the show, "my job is to ascertain proof and debunk everything."
Barri says he now has a new found level of respect for the spiritual side of paranormal investigation, "it's changed my perception. During the first series and working with Chris, I've learnt a lot more about myself, and I've learnt a lot more about the spirit world."
"I've never been religious in my whole life and now I believe in something else", Barri confessed, but of course everyone's believes are a private and personal thing. He added, "it borders on Catholicism, Christianity - those kind of things."
Barri said that he wished he'd acted sooner and that the real heroes were his wife and his daughters, "I think full credit needs to be given to my wife and kids for dealing with it all in my absence. They were brave, resilient and powerful. Lucy especially held the fort and battered these demons without me by her side."
Barri said that he's concluded that "the power of blessing, religious texts and the power of prayer" is real. "I've seen it work in front of me. I've had those experiences that have been so enlightening that I've literally had an epiphany and I've gone 'do you know what, this works'."
NEWS: Help! My House Is Haunted returns with the eagerly anticipated NEW SERIES this November.
Who will be joining us for series 2? #HelpMyHouseIsHaunted pic.twitter.com/HACyCGAJsK
— Really Channel (@reallychannel) August 16, 2019
Barri's show 'Help! My House Is Haunted', which picked up a silver award in the 'best paranormal reality show' category in the 2018 Paranormal Entertainment Awards, returns in November.
This time round Barri and Chris are joined by British paranormal investigator, Jayne Harris. Barri told us, "Jayne is a breath of fresh air. She's added an element that we missed before. She's well-read, she's knowledgable, she's experienced, she grounds us both, and she's excellent on camera and articulates herself so well."
Although the locations for the new series haven't been revealed yet, Barri told us that across the 12 new episodes they'll visit seemingly ordinary homes belonging to normal people, who have fallen victim to paranormal occurrences. Not giving anything away, Barri teased, "they were brilliant, absolutely fantastic places."
This time round, the team will investigate the location with the aid of their new mobile nerve centre and even get the homes' owners involved in the investigations. Barri said, "it's ten times better than season one," adding that the evidence they captured is much more compelling this time around.
We can't wait to see series two of 'Help! My House Is Haunted' and will be bring you all the latest on the show in the coming months.
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