One woman named Mary Ann is among the list of priests, psychics and ghost hunters called to release spirits believed to inhabit houses and businesses. Mary Ann claims that when a person dies, he or she has three or four days to enter a "white light" that is the path to judgment. Somewhere inside the light, she believes, a person's ultimate fate is decided. Some people aren't ready to leave earth yet, though, and use their free will to hang around, she said.

"That white light is presented to you the very second that you die," Mary Ann said. "In your last breath, that white light is there. And everybody stays around for their funeral, everybody. That person in the casket—their spirit is right above the feet. They hear everything that goes on, they see everything that goes on. They check out their flowers, see who's there, who's not there."

Some ghosts stick around to say goodbye to those they love. Some, like a young father who dies suddenly, want to take care of the living, she said. While they don't all cause trouble, they usually are unwelcome. She claims to have cleansed churches, local courthouses and hospital surgical rooms. She says she also has worked for police departments, helping to solve murders by communicating with the dead victim. One television program, Psychic Detectives, deals with this subject and documents police department use of psychics to help solve murders. 

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