Respect Goes Both Ways

Lately, I’ve been thinking about respect.

I recently sat down with Bob Mavity, who spent 32 years as the technical director at The Piedmont Grand Opera House in Macon, Georgia.

During our conversation, Bob talked about the spirits that have long been part of life inside the theater and something he made very clear to the people who worked there.

Respect them.

Respect the theater.

And according to Bob, when someone didn’t, it wasn’t unusual for something to go wrong.

An unexplained technical problem.

A glitch.

Something that suddenly refused to work the way it should.

Bob never treated the spirits of The Grand as a novelty. They were part of the building he spent more than three decades caring for, and his relationship with them reflected that.

Listening to him talk about it made me think about the way we approach every investigation for Echoes of the South.

Because before we ask a single question, turn on a recorder, or try to make contact, there is something we bring into every location.

Respect.

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Prefer to listen? This Field Notes entry is available as an audio recording below.

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Walking Into Someone Else’s Space

When we enter a location to investigate, I am always conscious that we are walking into someone else’s space.

That is true of the living.

And I believe it is equally true of the dead.

If someone invited me into their home, I wouldn’t walk through the door yelling at them.

I wouldn’t insult them.

I wouldn’t start moving their belongings around to see if I could make them angry.

I wouldn’t demand that they answer my questions.

Yet somehow, when it comes to paranormal investigation, provoking spirits has become an accepted way of trying to get a response.

That has never made sense to me.

Our intention is completely different.

We’re there to connect.

We want to understand who may be present and why they are there.

Do they know they have died?

Do they feel stuck?

Are they looking for someone?

Do they need help?

Or are they perfectly content exactly where they are?

We can ask.

But the answer belongs to them.

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No Is an Answer Too

Being of service does not mean deciding what someone else needs.

That is something this work continues to teach me.

We may encounter someone and believe we can help them, but that doesn’t mean they want our help.

They may not trust us yet.

They may not be ready.

They may have no interest in leaving.

They may not want to communicate with us at all.

We respect that.

We aren’t there to force anyone to cross over.

We aren’t there to demand a performance because we brought cameras.

And we don’t assume that our desire to understand someone gives us the right to their story.

Sometimes the answer is no.

Sometimes there is no answer.

Both deserve to be respected.

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Trust Has to Start Somewhere

I think about this often when someone does choose to communicate with us.

From their perspective, we are strangers.

We arrive with equipment, cameras, lights, and questions.

We know why we’re there.

They may not.

So before meaningful communication can happen, there has to be some level of trust.

And trust has to start somewhere.

For us, it starts with intention.

We introduce ourselves.

We explain why we’re there.

We listen.

We try not to make assumptions about who someone is simply because of where we encounter them.

And if someone seems frightened, confused, guarded, or unwilling to communicate, we adjust.

I believe that matters.

I also believe it may be one of the reasons we experience as much communication as we do.

Not because we have somehow figured out the perfect way to investigate.

But because respect changes the conversation.

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Respect Goes Both Ways

There is another side to this.

We expect respect in return.

I’ve written before about boundaries and how strongly I believe that we, the living, have more power than we sometimes realize.

Respecting someone in spirit does not mean surrendering those boundaries.

If I don’t want to be touched, I can say so.

If something is making someone uncomfortable, we can address it.

If someone is deliberately trying to frighten or intimidate us, we don’t have to accept that behavior simply because we are in their space.

Respect isn’t submission.

It is an understanding of how we are going to treat one another.

That seems remarkably similar to the relationships we have with the living.

We can be compassionate without being afraid.

We can be curious without being intrusive.

We can offer help without forcing it.

And we can respect someone while still expecting them to respect us.

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Living With the Unexplained

That may be what struck me most about my conversation with Bob.

He spent 32 years working in a theater where unexplained experiences were simply part of the landscape.

He didn’t need to provoke them.

He didn’t need to turn every occurrence into something frightening.

He acknowledged what was there.

He respected it.

And he expected the people around him to do the same.

There is something beautifully uncomplicated about that.

Sometimes people who spend the most time in reportedly active locations develop a relationship with the unexplained that is very different from someone arriving for a few hours hoping to experience something paranormal.

It becomes part of their day.

A sound.

A feeling.

Something behaving strangely.

A moment they can’t explain.

They notice it.

They acknowledge it.

And then they keep going.

Perhaps that acceptance is its own form of respect.

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How We Enter Matters

Every investigation is different.

We never know who we may encounter.

We don’t know whether someone will want to communicate.

We don’t know what they have experienced, what they understand about their circumstances, or what they may need from us.

But we do have control over one thing.

How we enter.

We can enter demanding proof.

We can enter looking for a reaction.

We can enter assuming that because someone is no longer living, they somehow owe us access to them.

Or we can knock.

Introduce ourselves.

Explain why we’re there.

And listen.

I know which approach feels right to me.

Maybe respect doesn’t guarantee communication.

Nothing does.

But if I were on the other side of that conversation, deciding whether I wanted to step forward and speak to a group of strangers who had just walked into my space, I know which group I’d be more inclined to trust.

So we’ll keep doing what we’ve always done.

We’ll ask instead of demand.

We’ll offer instead of force.

We’ll listen when someone wants to speak.

We’ll respect the silence when they don’t.

And when we walk into someone else’s space, whether they are living or dead, we’ll remember that being invited through the door is never permission to forget our manners.

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Field Notes

Field Notes are personal reflections from my ongoing investigations, historical research, and conversations across the South. They are not meant to provide definitive answers, only honest observations gathered along the way.

Until next time…

Stay close.