From Hunting Ghosts to Tending Gardens

Demonologist (and farmer) Samantha Fall has traded holy water for organic soil

By Anna Faller | Oct. 26, 2024

If you looked up “Jane-of-all-trades” in the dictionary, you’d likely find Samantha Fall’s picture.

A Michigan native, Fall (née Harris) is a demonologist with a background in abnormal psychology, a former ghost hunter and deliverance minister (i.e., a cleanser of evil spirits), and founder of the Michigan Paranormal Research Association (MPRA), through which she’s helped inform such mainstream media as The Travel Channel, SyFy, and the A&E Network, among several others. She even hosted six episodes of the Travel & Escape Network’s Paranormal Survivor!

Fall is also the brains behind award-winning photography and videography company Timeless Media Productions (Traverse City), which she founded in 2009, and an avid naturopath, farmer, and culinary veteran. Oh, and she’s a published author; her book, which hit shelves in 2014, is entitled Fighting Malevolent Spirits: A Demonologist’s Darkest Encounters.

The paranormal parts of Fall’s life often bleed into the rest of her day-to-day. Inevitably, she’s become an expert in walking the line between worlds.

“In college it felt very dichotomous, where I’d [be experiencing] both life and death,” she notes. “It was like being on two opposite sides of the spectrum, and in a lot of ways I’m still doing that.”

A Sixth Sense

Fall’s eerie expertise, she says, took hold in early childhood, when she first discovered that she possessed, in her own words, some “weird abilities.” These included unnerving déjà vu, dreams that often came true in real life—and in a few exceptional cases—even accurate death premonitions.

“I had a dream about the passing of a senior gentleman [in my community] two weeks before it happened,” she notes. “It was the same with my grandpa—just moment-for-moment déjà vu.”

Per Fall, the gift is a family affair, passed down through generations on her mother’s side. As early on as high school, Fall felt called to help families experiencing paranormal activity.

In other words, she hunted ghosts.

As for what the job entails? For Fall, it’s all about helping people rid their homes and lives of negativity. Her work definitely isn’t Satanism, which she says is a common misconception (and knowingly poking at darker practices, like animal sacrifices and Ouija boards, she says, can be a one-way ticket to attracting an evil that’s tough to shake).

Once a home, or occasionally a person, has attracted an unwanted spectral guest, Fall says that every demon hunter’s M.O. is totally unique. Hers, which she developed through years of careful research and mentorship (including a stint with renowned paranormal investigator and medium Lorraine Warren), includes first closing the spiritual threshold and restoring peace to the space through a blessing—an age-old practice with variations throughout dozens of global religions and cultures.

“It’s always really beautiful when it feels like a weight has been lifted,” adds Fall. “Your home is supposed to be a place of safety and respite; but for some people, it’s where the nightmare begins.”

Inexplicable Experiences

And boy, has she seen some stuff!

For her first foray in the field, for example, Fall helped perform the spiritual cleansing of a former classmate’s family home, which sat on the grounds of the old Michigan State Sanitarium (aka, Hillcrest Sanitarium) in Howell.

When the team—a caravan of five cars—arrived, she says, all five alarms sounded instantaneously and couldn’t be silenced, despite the group’s efforts. “It was just so odd,” she notes. “That’s when I was like, ‘I think you’ve got more than just grandma’s ghost in the attic!’”

In the nearly 12 years following, Fall, alongside her MPRA crew, witnessed everything from “bad energy”—“when the space is oppressive or you’re uncomfortable and there’s no logical explanation why,” she explains—to infestations, chronic illness, and full-fledged apparitions, one of which even followed her home!

Accompanied by other paranormal experts and researchers throughout the state, Fall has also amassed scores of evidence, much of which she’s presented at universities and exhibitions. This includes shadows forming on camera, unexplained marks and scratches on eyewitnesses, and one especially creepy Electronic Voice Phenomena (EVP, or recordings thought to be spirits talking), wherein a disembodied speaker can be heard addressing Fall directly.

Nevertheless, Fall also appreciates, and even encourages, skepticism in supernatural dealings. In fact, she notes that some of the MPRA’s cases actually had logical causes: addiction or mental health conditions, negative side effects of prescription medication, or even a wayward animal could all masquerade as a malevolent spirit.

“I totally respect people who don’t believe in [the paranormal]. Unless you’ve seen or experienced it yourself, it’s like asking you to believe in the Tooth Fairy!” she says.

By the same token, though, most people also haven’t gone looking for the supernatural, and though she concedes that modern science hasn’t yet caught up to the spiritual spectrum, there’s no question in Fall’s mind that it’s all real.

“By presenting [the MPRA’s findings], I’d hoped to reassure people that there are good things in the world, that if [evil entities] are real, then the other side of the spectrum has to be real, too. Maybe down the road, we’ll have an explanation,” she adds, “but what I’ll tell you right now, the stuff that I’ve seen firsthand—I can’t explain it.”

Family and Farming

All that intuition, though, comes with a heavy emotional burden, and in the eight years since her son, Cameron, was born, Fall has formally left ghost hunting.

Instead, she’s pursuing other passions, the most recent of which is a 14-acre agrarian oasis called Elderberry Farms Estate.

Established in 2020, the farm, which sits just west of Traverse City, is part of Leelanau’s burgeoning “farm corridor” alongside neighbors like Jacob’s Farm, Gallagher’s Farm Market, and Light of Day Organic Farm and Tea Shop, and features offerings for all ages, including organically grown herbs and produce, u-pick lavender, a café, and a rentable farm-stay.

Per Fall, running a farm has long held a space on her personal business docket. She got her start just after college with a mini farm in mid-Michigan, where she also raised chickens and dairy goats, while other phases of her life have been marked by gardens, orchards, and general land-tilling.

“Everywhere I’ve lived, I’ve had something like that going on. We really wanted a piece of land,” she explains.

The estate also offers the perfect outlet for Fall’s fascination with herbalism, which she satisfies by hand-crafting tinctures and supplements, many of which feature elderberry. The potent fruit—which grows widely in Michigan—contains an extract called Sambucol, which can provide immune support and shorten the length of cold and flu symptoms.

As its name suggests, Elderberry Farms Estate is a regular haven for the stuff—in fact, it’s even been recognized as Michigan’s first commercial elderberry location—offering extracts, teas, tinctures, syrups, and everything in between. Fall also plans to keep other natural supplements in stock via the farm’s bulk dispensary, notably willow bark, echinacea, and mullein.

Peering into the Future

Down the line, Fall has plans in play to expand the farm’s offerings even further, teasing the reprisal of events like ticketed dinners helmed by rotating and out-of-state chefs, as well as an army of farm animals (so far, she’s committed to goats, ducks, and chickens), and maybe even a liquor license.

For now, though, the space aims to offer continued support for the local farming community—a longtime goal of Fall’s—while also providing some well-deserved respite from the outside world’s chaos.

“I think I’m drawn to playing in dirt on the farm because it helps me disconnect,” she says. “It’s a place where I can turn it all off.”

While you can take the girl away from the ghosts, though, you can’t take the ghost hunter out of the girl. It’s no surprise then that Fall, at least in part, is still tuned into her intuitive “frequency.”

“The dreams still happen,” she says. “I’m not skilled at turning it on and off, so [practicing] moderation is how I get through each day.”

In fact, she says, she’d like to see other people open their minds to their own sensitivities.

“It’s like a muscle that we all have, but are trained early on not to use,” says Fall. “Intuition is something we’re all capable of, and I think that if you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you can move mountains.”

Find Elderberry Farms Estate at 4702 E. Traverse Hwy in Traverse City. (231) 220-9098. elderberryfarmsestate.com. For more information on Samantha Fall and her work in the supernatural field, visit mpra26.wixsite.com. (Please note: the original Michigan PRA domain has been compromised).