Questions to Ask Spirits
56 questions to ask spirits, for anyone deciding what to ask during a seance, over a board, through a spirit box on a ghost hunt or in a sitting with a medium, grouped in the order a session runs: opening, who they were, why they stay, questions to ask the dead you knew in life, the afterlife and advice, and how to close. Many people come to this while grieving, so the notes also cover what to do with a reply once you have one.
Want questions from the whole vault instead? Try the random question generator.
The questions
Each question, and why to ask it
Opening
Is there a spirit here with us right now?
Why ask it
The plainest opening there is, and where most groups begin. Ask it once, then leave a full minute of quiet before the next question: a house makes plenty of noise by itself, and you need to hear what the room sounds like when nobody is asking.
Who am I speaking to?
Why ask it
Ask for the identity before you ask for anything else, and then wait, so the silence does not get filled with the name you were hoping for. The reply may be a role, such as 'a friend' or 'mother', and not a name at all. In a paid reading, notice whether a name is offered to you or drawn out of you by a series of guesses.
Are you willing to talk with us tonight?
Why ask it
A no is a real answer here, and the point of asking is that you have agreed beforehand to honour it. If the pointer goes to no, or nothing happens for a few minutes, thank the room and pack up. A group that pushes on anyway has stopped asking and started demanding, and that is usually when someone gets frightened.
Can you give us a sign that you are here?
Why ask it
Say which sign you mean and how long you will wait for it: one knock within the next minute, for instance. An open request lets every creak in the pipes count as a reply, and afterward nobody at the table agrees on what happened.
Is there something you came here to say?
Why ask it
Leaving the floor open, once, is more respectful than working through a list of your own and it avoids leading the answer. Write down whatever comes first in the exact words before you begin interpreting it.
Are you a friendly spirit?
Why ask it
Nervous groups usually get to this one, often as 'are you good or evil', which is a harder thing to hear a yes to at midnight. Asking about friendliness keeps it to a yes or no and keeps the table calm. If the reply unsettles anyone, close the session there: no answer is worth a frightened friend.
Do you know anyone in this room?
Why ask it
The reply decides which half of this list you need: yes leads to the questions for someone you knew, no to the ones about who they were. Ask it before anybody has said a relative's name aloud. If it is yes, go round one seat at a time asking 'this person?', and keep the names of your own dead to yourselves until one is given.
Are you here alone, or are there others with you?
Why ask it
Worth asking when the replies start contradicting each other, which groups tend to read as more than one voice. On a board or with knocks, split it into two questions so each half can be answered yes or no.
Is it all right with you that we are here?
Why ask it
Ask this anywhere that is not your own home: an old house, a churchyard, a stop on a ghost tour. It also hands the most nervous person in the group a polite reason to call it a night if the answer feels like no.
Would you rather answer by knocking, through the board or in a voice?
Why ask it
A question for a seance where more than one method is laid out on the table. Offer the choices one at a time, then keep to the one picked for the rest of the sitting. A group that changes method each time one goes quiet ends up keeping only the answers it liked.
Can you say the name of someone sitting here?
Why ask it
A common first question through a spirit box, since a name is one word and everyone knows whether it was spoken. Have each person write down what they heard before anybody talks. The box throws out syllables the whole time it is on, and a group that compares aloud tends to settle on whatever the first person says.
How many of us are in the room?
Why ask it
One of the few replies you can mark right or wrong on the spot, and short enough for a spirit box or a run of knocks. Ask it once and write down what came, even if it is wrong. Asking again until the right number turns up only shows that you kept going.
Can you repeat the word we just said?
Why ask it
Choose an odd word, one a radio presenter is unlikely to say in the next half minute, and say it a single time. 'Yes', 'here' and 'hello' are in most of the broadcasts a spirit box sweeps past, so hearing one of them tells you very little.
Who they were
What was your full name when you were alive?
Why ask it
'Who am I speaking to' can come back as a role or a nickname. This one asks for the thing you can look up. Take it letter by letter in silence, surname included, and only afterward compare it with a family tree or the history of the building.
Are you a man, a woman or a child?
Why ask it
Each option is a single word, which is why ghost hunters with a spirit box ask it early. Say the three slowly with a gap after each. A voice that sounds male or female may be nothing more than the presenter the sweep landed on, so weigh the word and not the voice.
How old were you when you died?
Why ask it
A number is something a board, a pendulum or a run of knocks can actually deliver, so this usually gets a cleaner reply than an open question. If a child's age comes back, stop and check that everyone present is comfortable going on.
What is the last year you remember?
Why ask it
Asking for a remembered year places someone in time without making them do arithmetic. Treat the reply as a lead to look up later. On the night a date settles little, since everyone at the table already has a rough idea how old the building is.
Did you live in this house, or somewhere close by?
Why ask it
This ties the voice to an address, and an address can be researched. A local library or records office can often tell you who lived there and when, and going to look is a better use of the following week than a second sitting.
What was your trade, or how did you spend your days?
Why ask it
Work is neutral ground, easy to ask about and hard to take offence at, and the second half leaves room for a child or for someone who kept a house. It also narrows any search you do later, because a miller or a schoolteacher is far easier to find in old records than a first name alone.
Who were the people you loved most?
Why ask it
Here the sitting moves from facts to feeling without touching anything frightening. If names come, take them as given and resist matching them to your own relatives until the session is over.
What was the best part of your life?
Why ask it
Most lists go straight to the death, as though that were the only day worth asking about. A question about a good year keeps first-timers calm, and it is the one to reach for when the room has gone tense.
How would you like to be remembered?
Why ask it
Suits a spirit nobody at the table knew, where personal questions have nowhere to land. Whatever you receive, say it back aloud before moving on. It is a small courtesy, and it lets everyone check they heard the same thing.
Why they stay
What keeps you here?
Why ask it
The question behind every haunted-house story, asked without assuming the reason is anger or tragedy. For a board, offer the options one at a time: a person, this place, something unfinished, or simply that they like it here.
How long have you been here?
Why ask it
With knocks or a board, ask in steps: longer than ten years, longer than fifty, longer than a hundred. The answer tells you whether to look for this person in living memory or in an archive, and you can set it against the last year they said they remember.
Are you the one we have been hearing in this house?
Why ask it
For people asking at home because of footsteps, a door or a voice on the stairs. Name the one thing you mean, since a yes to 'the noises' covers the boiler too. It helps to have kept a week of notes on when it happens: a pattern that follows the heating timer or a neighbour's shifts settles this better than a knock can.
Which room do you spend the most time in?
Why ask it
A room is a one-word reply, so it suits a board or a spirit box, and it tells the group where to set up next. Count it for less if the word that comes back is the room you are standing in, since that is the reply everyone was already listening for.
How did you die, and was it here?
Why ask it
Asked of a stranger this is a history question, and nearly every list carries it. Put it late and ask it once. When the person is someone you loved, ask what they want you to understand about it instead, because the bare facts are rarely what you came for.
What did you leave undone that still matters to you?
Why ask it
Unfinished business is the oldest explanation offered for why anyone would linger. If the reply names a task, talk over whether it is harmless to carry out, such as visiting a grave or passing on a letter, before anybody promises to do it.
What could we do that would help you?
Why ask it
Offering help changes your footing from investigators to guests. Keep the offer modest and say plainly what you will not do, so that no one goes home feeling bound by a promise made at one in the morning.
What do you want us to know about this place?
Why ask it
The reply can be about a room, an object or an event, with no need for the spirit to talk about itself. Anything specific, a blocked doorway or a name scratched on a beam, should be looked for in daylight and not that night.
Someone you knew
How did you know me?
Why ask it
Relationship before message is the order that keeps a sitting honest. Answers such as an older relative who loved you fit almost everybody, and a reader who leans on them is describing a category rather than a person.
Can you tell me something only you and I would know?
Why ask it
The classic test, and a fair one. Decide beforehand what would count: a nickname, the punchline of a private joke, where the spare key was kept. A ring, a garden or a bad chest would be true of most families and proves nothing.
Could you hear me when I talked to you?
Why ask it
Many people who have lost someone carry on a one-sided conversation for months, in the car or at the grave. Asking this tends to affect you more than any answer does, and that is not a failure of the session.
Were you with us on the day I am thinking of?
Why ask it
Many people who come with questions for the dead have a day in mind that the person missed: a wedding, a birth, a graduation. Keep the day to yourself while you ask. No method gives more than a yes or a no here, and saying aloud that you wanted them there is the part that stays with you.
What do you want me to understand about how you died?
Why ask it
For the bereaved this is often the question sitting underneath all the others. It seldom produces facts, but asking it aloud brings what you are actually carrying into a room where you can look at it.
Which memory of us would you like me to keep?
Why ask it
You will almost certainly supply the memory yourself, and that is fine. Pay attention to which one arrives first. It is often an ordinary afternoon, a long way from the hospital or the funeral, and that is the one worth keeping.
Do you have a message for anyone else?
Why ask it
Speaking on behalf of the dead to the living is where this can do real harm, so decide before you ask whether you would pass anything on. Anything that would wound the other person, or that settles an old family argument in your favour, is better kept to yourself.
Is there something of yours you want a particular person to have?
Why ask it
Belongings are where families fall out after a death, so hear any reply as a prompt and never as an instruction. If an object and a name come back, mention it to the family as something you wondered about. Who receives what is for the living and whoever is handling the estate.
What do you need me to stop doing?
Why ask it
It invites something you would rather not hear, where most questions in a sitting invite comfort. If the reply is about how you have lived since they died, the skipped meals or the room kept exactly as it was, treat it as your own good sense talking and act on it gently.
What did I get wrong about you?
Why ask it
Grief simplifies people into a version that is easier to carry, usually kinder and flatter than the original. Asking this reopens the complicated person, who is normally the one you actually miss.
What would you like to be forgiven for?
Why ask it
This one is for sitters who are still angry and feel they are not allowed to be. Say the thing you would want an apology for, out loud, before you ask. Anger at someone who has died is ordinary, and it does not make you disloyal to them.
Do you forgive me?
Why ask it
Most people know which answer they want and are frightened of the one they expect. If what you carry is guilt over a last conversation or a decision made at the hospital, no knock will settle it: tell someone you trust the whole story as well.
Are you at peace now, and free from pain?
Why ask it
For many bereaved sitters this is the question they came with, and it is better arrived at slowly than used as an opener. Whatever you hear, notice what you feel on hearing it, because that reaction is the honest part of the evening.
Afterlife and advice
What is it like where you are now?
Why ask it
Everybody wants to ask it, and nothing on the table can carry the reply: a board spells single words and a recorder gives a syllable at most. Ask for one word, take it as one word, and leave the theology for the drive home.
Have you found the people you lost?
Why ask it
A kinder route into the afterlife question, since it asks about company and leaves doctrine alone. Be ready for how hard a yes can land on someone at the table who is grieving, and pause there if it does.
What did you expect to find after you died, and were you right?
Why ask it
Two parts, so save it for a medium or a journal, where a sentence can come back. It asks about one person's belief and does not ask the spirit to settle heaven and hell for the whole room, so sitters of different faiths can hear the reply without an argument starting.
What looks different to you now than it did in life?
Why ask it
Perspective is the one thing the dead are supposed to have over the living, so ask for it directly. If what comes back is small, a quarrel, money, a grudge over a will, set it beside whatever filled your own week.
What do you wish you had done differently while you were alive?
Why ask it
A regret is advice turned inside out, which is why sitters ask for it. If the reply sounds exactly like something you have been telling yourself lately, that is information about you, and it deserves the same weight as your own opinion and no more.
What would you say about the decision I'm facing?
Why ask it
Asking someone who knew you well tends to produce their real advice, because you can predict what they would have said. Treat the answer as their voice in your memory, which is where its authority honestly comes from.
What is coming that I should be ready for?
Why ask it
Plenty of people sit down with this one already in mind, and it is the reply to hold most loosely. Write it down with the date, change nothing about your health, money or travel because of it, and reread it in six months to see how it aged.
Closing
After tonight, how will I know when you are near?
Why ask it
Settle on one specific sign, a song or a particular bird, and not a general feeling, or everything starts to look like a message. Afterward, be honest with yourself about how often that sign would have turned up anyway.
Do you want me to keep doing this, or am I doing it too often?
Why ask it
Sittings can become a way of not letting anyone go, particularly in the first year after a death. If you cannot easily imagine a month without one, that is worth discussing with a living person.
Would you like us to come back, or to leave you in peace?
Why ask it
In form at least, this gives the decision about another session to the other side of the table. A group that hears 'leave' and returns the next weekend anyway has learned something about why it is really sitting.
Is there anything else, before I stop?
Why ask it
One last opening removes the pull to keep going for another hour on the chance of something more. It also marks the end deliberately, which matters most if you are sitting alone.
Will you stay here when we go, and not follow anyone home?
Why ask it
Investigators say some version of this at the end of a night out of habit, mostly for the benefit of the living. The friend who was frightened all evening sleeps better for having heard it spoken aloud, and that alone justifies asking.
Can we thank you and say goodbye now?
Why ask it
On a board this is when the pointer is taken to goodbye. With anything else, say thank you and goodbye aloud and switch the main light on. A marked ending lets you leave the session in the room; stop abruptly and it tends to follow you around for the rest of the night.
Sitting carefully
Practical guidance for the conversation itself
Before you begin
- Decide how long you will sit and what will end it. Sessions without a planned end tend to continue until someone is upset or exhausted.
- Write your questions down beforehand. Under the pressure of a quiet room people ask whatever they are most afraid of, in the least useful wording.
- Leave three kinds of question off the list: when anyone will die, whether someone is ill, and anything aimed at a person in the room. They frighten people, nothing that comes back can be checked, and a reply can sit badly with someone long after the evening is over.
- Choose one person to ask for, if you are asking for anyone in particular, and say so out loud at the start.
- Do not sit alone if you are recently bereaved and having a bad week. Ask someone steady to be in the house, even in another room.
- Agree in advance that anyone present may stop the session without explanation.
Asking in a way you can trust afterward
Ask open questions and then wait, rather than offering names, dates, and details for confirmation. Anything you supply yourself will come back to you and feel like evidence later. Keep a written record in the exact words used, including your own, because memory rewrites a sitting quickly and generously. When something specific does arrive, note whether it could be checked, whether you had mentioned it earlier that evening, and how many people it would be true of. Doing this does not make the session less respectful; it means that whatever survives your own scrutiny is worth keeping.
Matching the question to the method
- Knocks, a pendulum and dowsing rods give yes or no. Turn open questions into a series of options and offer them one at a time.
- A board gives letters and numbers. Ask for a name, an age, a year or a single word, and do not expect a sentence.
- A recorder gives fragments. Ask short questions, leave at least twenty seconds of silence after each, and say aloud any noise you made yourself so it is on the recording.
- A spirit box sweeps across the radio band and gives scraps of sound. Ask for one word, such as a name, a number or a room, and agree before you switch it on which words would count.
- A medium gives sentences, which is why the longer questions on this list belong in a reading and why you should say so little yourself.
- Sitting quietly with a journal has no instrument at all. Write the question, write the first thing that comes, and judge it the next day.
Sitting with a medium
Before you book
Agree the length and the fee in advance, and be careful with anyone who requires a course of sessions to finish what they started. Say as little as possible about your loss when you make the booking.
During the reading
Answer with yes, no, or nothing. Long explanations hand over the material, and a reader working honestly will not need them.
Warning signs
Requests for large sums, offers to remove a curse or a block for a fee, claims that a relative is suffering until you pay, and pressure to keep returning. Any of these is a reason to leave.
Bringing someone with you
A second person remembers the reading differently from you and can tell you afterward what was actually said. If you are grieving heavily, this matters more than privacy.
In a house or site that is not yours
- Get permission to be there. Cemeteries keep hours, empty buildings have owners, and the rules on trespass differ from place to place, so ask who is responsible for the site before you go.
- The building is the real hazard: rotten floors, open stairwells, no light, no phone signal. Stay out of anything derelict, and tell someone at home where you are and when you will be back.
- If you are under 18, keep this to your own home or an organised tour, with an adult who knows where you are.
- Go as a group and agree that the least comfortable person sets the pace. If one of you wants to leave, everyone leaves.
- Ask politely. Taunting or daring a spirit to prove itself makes for a worse night and a more frightened group, whatever else it does.
- Look up the history after the sitting, not before. What you read beforehand comes back to you during the session as if it were new.
Boards, recorders, spirit boxes, and apps
- All of these produce ambiguous output that the mind reliably resolves into words and faces. Expect that, and hold the results loosely.
- With a board, the movement comes from the hands on it. Knowing that does not mean you have to stop, but it should change how much weight you give the message.
- With recordings, do not listen while someone tells you what to hear. Once you are told, you cannot unhear it.
- With a spirit box, the sound is made of pieces of live radio, so words turn up whether or not anyone is asking. Each of you should write down what you heard before comparing, and keep only what two people wrote separately.
- Never use these to answer a practical question about health, money, or someone's safety.
- Whatever you use, close it the same way each time and put it away. The ritual is for you, and it helps to have one.
Afterward
Eat something, speak to someone, and do something ordinary before you sleep. Read your notes again the next day; a sitting that felt overwhelming at midnight often reads as gentle in daylight, and the reverse happens too. If sessions are becoming frequent, if you feel worse rather than steadier after them, or if you find yourself making decisions on the strength of what you heard, talk to a bereavement counsellor or your own doctor. There is real help for grief that has stalled, and nothing in a practice like this is a substitute for that conversation.