ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the author conceptualizes the sensing of spirits as an interactive accomplishment but turns its focus toward paranormal investigator’s interactions with spirits during investigations. He refers to as empersoning, paranormal investigators construct and sustain personhood status for the spirits that reportedly reside in haunted locations. This empersoning is dependent upon attributions of mindedness, distinctiveness, and co-presence. Empersoning is temporally situated in regard to when, in relation to the investigation itself, investigators access information that shapes their interpretations of events that take place during the investigation. In relation to paranormal investigating, typified empersoning occurs when investigators enter a location with limited knowledge of claims about paranormal activity that allegedly occurs at the location. The author situates empersoning in social, structural, and temporal contexts. In the case of paranormal investigation, empersoning occurs among like-minded people who share a foundational ontological assumption that ghosts are real.
