I don’t know about you, but the thought of having the gift of “I see dead people” is something I’m not all that upset about being slighted on. Seriously — would you really enjoy having your relaxing bath being interrupted by an aggressive spirit who plunks himself down on your toilet seat and demands to talk? “A bit inappropriate,” muses Lisa Williams, but as a clairvoyant it’s just part of her job. The spunky redheaded Brit returns to Lifetime for a second season of Lisa Williams: Life Among the Dead, beginning Oct. 12. Here’s what Williams had to share about the new season.
What can we expect to see in Season 2?
Lisa Williams: It will be very similar to last year. We approach random people on the streets … and do general quick readings to those people I feel I need to speak to. We do office reads, location reads. This time I investigate a murder, I investigate a car crash — I basically piece together the final moments of someone’s life for their family to help them get closure. Then we do haunted houses. We do a few celebrity readings and we also do a large audience show, where I [give] random members of the audience readings.
How do TV shows like “Medium” and movies like “The Sixth Sense” compare to your real talent?
I often say these programs on TV are brilliant because they obviously have done their research. The one I closely liken myself to is Ghost, [where] Whoopi Goldberg is hearing a voice. …You hear this voice in your head and you get these immense feelings that someone is around you and then you have to work out if it’s male or female. Once you start getting a link and creating the link then the information becomes stronger and that’s when they start giving you specific details, such as “My name is this. I died on this day. It was our wedding anniversary on this day.” It’s interesting.
What I see is very much a silhouette of the person but they are surrounded in white. Then when I close my mind and eyes, I can visualize a very significant photograph that a loved one may have of them. There’s many different ways. I use all my senses. Sometimes they’ll stroke me and I’ll be like “Oh, OK.” Or they will speak to me. Or they’ll give me a taste of something they use to love. Or I’ll smell a flower that was their favorite scent. It’s building up a picture in many ways of this person by using all of your different senses.
Can you turn it off?
Yeah, I do. I do turn it off. There are times where you basically try to switch yourself off but someone is so desperate to try and get through and pass on a message. I’m like, “OK. Fine. I give in.” It happened at the gym, like two days ago. I’m working out and really not doing my witchy stuff and suddenly I have to say to my trainer, “This is what I’m picking up — can you relate to it?” And he’s, “Oh my God, yes, I can.” It happens at the most odd times.
How old were you when you first realized you had this talent?
Well, I thought everybody had this talent, this sort of gift. When I first saw my first spirit, I was about 3 or 4 years old. I thought everybody had these nightmares, these visions, these dreams, faces coming out of the wall and stuff. When I realized this was a bit unusual and this was something I could do and I was special at it, I think I was probably maybe 16 or 17. That’s when I thought, “Oh my God, it’s freaky.”
Were you scared?
Yeah. Yeah. When this happens you do get scared because it’s the fear of the unknown. The more it happened [though] it was more of a case of “OK, this is my life, how do I deal with it?”
Are you ever scared now?
Yeah! [laughs] I go into those haunted houses and I say “OK, I’m at my depths here.” Or I’ll just feel very uncomfortable in a place and I will very honestly say “I don’t like it” or “I’m scared” or “This is something I don’t want to do.” I’m very, very honest with people and I tell them this is really something I don’t want to be involved in.
Within hours of your grandfather’s passing he actually contacted you — correct?
Yeah, he did. There’s no real time limit. If they are in spirit and they want to get a message across they’ll get a message across. They will get their way. If there’s unresolved issues, like my grandfather was adamant he wanted a cremation. He came to me and it was like, telling me the information I needed to know. There’s really no time limit for a spirit coming through.
Why do you think you have this gift?
I think everyone has a bit of it. We all have this sixth sense. We are all given a certain talent we have to use at some point of our life. I think we all have a gut instinct and that’s basically exactly what I’ve done, [I’ve] just progressed it further. I liken it to a singer — everyone can sing. There are those people who just sing in the bathroom and don’t want to be heard and then opera singers. But a karaoke singer could train themselves to be a pop star — it’s like me. I can train myself to be higher and higher.
What are your thoughts on Ouija boards?
My grandmother always said to me, “Never touch a Ouija board because you never know what’s going to come through,” and I agree with her. With a Ouija board you can get the negative spirits and if you don’t know what you are doing then you are playing with fire.
Have you ever come across a negative spirit?
I’ve come across plenty of negative spirits. Definitely.
So, what are they like?
They’re not very nice. I had one negative spirit who tried to attack my son. It’s fine attacking me, but you can’t attack my son. I basically fled the house, this is like 2 o’clock in the morning, and then when I got home the following day I thought “I’ve got to deal with this spirit.” He basically had come to me and the only way he could get my attention is through my son. He told me the reason why he passed, and how he passed and he basically had done a really awful crime, a very sexual crime. He was in fact telling me what he was doing, which was really, really horrible, but he was very negative, very aggressive, very horrible, he was very angry. You just have to deal with them — it’s almost how you would deal with an angry person, in a very calm way.
What did you tell him?
I basically asked him “Why did you come to me? Why did you come to my son? What is all this about?” He said, “I need your help to try and pass to the other side,” because he was in the limbo state. I actually finally helped him across and helped into the spirit realm. It’s funny because it just so happens that when I told the story to a friend of mine, it happened to be her cousin, which is really, really weird. I came across negative spirits in the last season and I didn’t do anything about it because some of these spirits are very, very negative and they can be dangerous.
What did he do to your son?
This guy had basically given me the shape of a knife and he held my son down and he sort of like layed on his chest and my son couldn’t breathe. Incidentally, my son was in my bed at the time and he was lying down and it was very heavy on his chest. He kept telling me he couldn’t breathe, and then he saw this outline of this shape of a man who looked like he had a knife and he was coming to knife him. When you’ve got a 4- or 5-year-old telling you that, you think, “Ok, I’m going to deal with this.”
My colleague just bought a 1927 schoolhouse and he’s sure it’s haunted. Any tips for him?
He needs to sage the whole house. He also needs to get some dream-catch crystals and hang them in the windows so they expel a real positive energy. You can place amethysts in certain points of the house near windows, doors, in the corners just to help the energy flow throughout the house.
Are these spirits left in the house for a reason? Why are some houses haunted?
Some houses are haunted because the spirits just can’t move over, they just can’t move over. Some are just basically attached to the house and don’t want to move over.
Any dead people trying to talk to me?
I didn’t feel any. [laughing] I wasn’t thinking about that actually.
Bummer, I was hoping to catch up with a few (buncha deadbeats)!
