Speaking with the Spirits of the Old Southwest: Conversations with Miners, Outlaws, and Pioneers Who Still Roam Ghost Towns

Dan Baldwin, Rhonda Hull, and Dwight Hull

Llewellyn Publications (May 2018)

$16.99 USD (Paperback); 288 pages; 29 b&w photos

ISBN 978-0-7387-5674-5

Baldwin (an accomplished pendulum dowser) and the Hulls (Rhonda, a psychic medium, and Dwight, a paranormal researcher/animal communicator) visit a number of Old West locations throughout Arizona in this eclectic anthology, communicating with ghosts through a variety of psychic techniques, and collecting electronic voice phenomena (EVPs) along the way. The accessible book includes brief historical information about each of the locations visited, and edited transcripts of the audio recordings produced during the sessions at each stop. The authors even take the time to share a bit of wisdom about how best to conduct paranormal investigations. For example, Dwight describes the team’s preferred overarching approach to ghost communication: “You go in and you treat them [spirits] with respect, and you’ll build a relationship, and won’t be a ghost hunter chasing someone through a house. You’ll be someone invited to have a conversation.”

While Baldwin and the Hulls approach their collaborative work with an admirable mixture of persistence, purpose, and enthusiasm, one of the small disappointments of the book is that the authors do not consistently include information about whether they subsequently attempted to unearth additional evidence to shed a bit more light on the spirit “conversations” chronicled. Readers will naturally wonder if there’s not even more historical data out there that could help provide useful background information regarding who these ghosts might have been, how they lived their lives, and why they’re sticking around.