Splintered Spirits

with Gary and John
  • 4.8 (29)
  • Spirituality
  • Updated Semiweekly

What are spirits, really? Splintered Spirits explores the afterlife, ghosts, and the mysteries of human consciousness. Hosted by producer Gary Shapiro (the uneasy novice) and his nephew John Santa of Santa Paranormal (the experienced researcher), this podcast bridges the gap between the physical and spiritual worlds. Tune in for unnerving, funny, and thoughtful interviews or on-location experiments with psychic-mediums, parapsychologists, ghost hunters, witches and everyday people who have pierced the veil.

  1. 3d ago

    Splintered Spirits Live with Kelsi Davies, Clairvoyant and Weirdcore Creator

    She sees the dead. She collects haunted dolls. And ten million people can't stop watching. Clairvoyant, actress and paranormal powerhouse Kelsi Davies joins Gary and John to talk about growing up with spirits, the family gift nobody wanted to talk about, and what really happens when she walks into the most haunted places in America. Plus her new Tubi series, a trip through a past life, and the question we ask everyone: what are ghosts? It's funny, it's dark, and it gets a little cosmic. New episode is now everywhere you listen. Watch on YouTube or Spotify, or catch it on Apple and wherever you get your podcasts. Be sure to like, comment, hype and share! Follow Kelsi everywhere @kelsiidaviess.

    Splintered Spirits Live with Kelsi Davies, Clairvoyant and Weirdcore Creator

  2. 6d ago

    Ep 54: Spirits as Information with John Kruth, Director of the Rhine Research Center

    John Kruth runs one of the strangest labs in America, and he's got the data to prove it. As executive director of the Rhine Research Center, the oldest continuously operating parapsychology lab in the country, with roots tracing back to a 1930s Duke University basement, Kruth has spent over fifteen years running ESP, psychokinesis, and psychic phenomena through controlled, peer reviewed, double blind experiments. He grew up doing meditation and healing work before he could ride a bike, and a shared childhood dream convinced him early on that something bigger than five senses was going on. This episode is built around one question. Are spirits energy, or are they information? Gary sits down with Kruth to unpack what parapsychologists mean when they say psi, which covers telepathy, clairvoyance, precognition, and the far edges of human consciousness. Kruth breaks down the Ganzfeld experiment, a sensory deprivation setup involving ping pong balls taped over your eyes, red light, and white noise, then tells a genuinely unsettling story about accidentally leaking his own thoughts into a subject sitting in another room. From there it's biophotons, energy healing, near death experiences, and survival research, plus a real debate over whether ghosts and hauntings are leftover human energy, like John Santa's theory suggests, or something closer to an informational field we're all quietly plugged into. It's a rare chance to hear a working scientist take hauntings, apparitions, and mediumship seriously without checking his skepticism at the door. Kruth compares psychic ability to golf, something anyone can practice but usually needs a natural gift to really excel at, and explains why the Rhine still runs lab studies instead of just chasing ghost stories on camera. If you care about parapsychology, ghost hunting, or just want a smarter conversation about what might survive after we die, don't miss this one. @RhineResearchCenter-ESP @Santaparanormal

    Ep 54: Spirits as Information with John Kruth, Director of the Rhine Research Center

  3. Sep 25

    The Lizzie Borden Family Curse: Splintered Spirits Live with Sam Baltrusis!

    Paranormal author and investigator Sam Baltrusis joins Gary and John Santa from @santaparanormal live with a reveal they didn’t see coming. Sam’s distantly related to Lizzie Borden. With his new book, Lizzie Borden and the Family Curse coming out October 13, Sam digs into the Borden family tree and its unsettling ties to other infamous names, including Aileen Wuornos and Marilyn Monroe. He also traces an ancestor whose father was executed on spectral evidence, begging the question whether a family can really carry a curse. The conversation goes deep on the Fall River axe murders. Sam walks through alternate suspects, including William Borden, and the Bertha Manchester murder theory. He also shares what Ryan Murphy's take on the Lizzie Borden story got wrong. From there, the talk turns thoughts on  a different ways ghost hunters should work. Sam, Gary, and John debate going into a haunted location cold versus knowing its history, trade notes with the skeptics, and explain why critical thinking matters. If you love true crime, haunted history, New England ghost stories, or paranormal investigation, this live episode is for you. Sam and John will both be at MASS ParaCon, October 2 to 4, 2026, in Taunton, Massachusetts. Subscribe to Splintered Spirits for weekly conversations with the people chasing the unexplained, and Stay Curious.

    The Lizzie Borden Family Curse: Splintered Spirits Live with Sam Baltrusis!

  4. Sep 18

    Ep 57: A Crash Course in Tarot with Beck Ravenswood

    Tarot cards get a bad rap in the movies: dramatic candlelight, a mysterious stranger, and a death card that spells doom. The reality is a lot more interesting, and a lot less scary, and in this episode we're getting the real story straight from someone who reads professionally and is currently fighting a legal battle over it. Beck Ravenswood, the Hanover, Pennsylvania witch making headlines as the plaintiff in a landmark court case over Pennsylvania's fortune telling laws, joins Gary for a full breakdown of the craft that started it all. Beck walks through tarot's murky medieval origins, the difference between the major and minor arcana, why the deck splits into four suits just like a regular deck of playing cards, and what it actually means when a card shows up reversed. Along the way she also gives an update on her ongoing lawsuit, a case that's turned into something much bigger than tarot itself, touching on free speech, religious practice, and what the government gets to decide counts as legitimate spiritual work. Then Beck puts Gary in the hot seat for his first ever tarot reading, a full ten card Celtic cross spread that digs into what's really going on beneath the surface. Whether you're tarot curious, already have a deck collecting dust on a shelf, or just want to understand what's really happening in a reading before you write it off, this episode is a genuinely useful crash course in one of the most misunderstood tools in the paranormal and spiritual world.

    Ep 57: A Crash Course in Tarot with Beck Ravenswood

  5. Sep 15

    Ep 53: The Warren Legacy with Chris McKinnell

    Chris McKinnell, grandson of legendary paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren, joins Splintered Spirits for a conversation about ghosts, consciousness, fear, and the real stories behind the Warren legacy. With more than four decades of fieldwork across 10,000 cases in 18 countries, Chris brings a perspective shaped by firsthand experience, psychology, religion, cultural anthropology, and a lifetime spent around the unexplained. Chris discusses why he moved beyond the demonology framework associated with the Warrens, why he believes fear can make paranormal experiences worse, and what he thinks spirits actually are. He also talks about the true cases that inspired The Conjuring universe, the modern obsession with Annabelle, haunted objects, psychic ability, residual energy, and why the paranormal may have far more to do with human consciousness than horror movies. This is a grounded, surprising episode of Splintered Spirits with one of the most connected voices in paranormal investigation.

    Ep 53: The Warren Legacy with Chris McKinnell

  6. Sep 11

    Splintered Spirits Live - September 10, 2026!!!

    John Santa has a big problem this week. After a few too many cocktails at the haunted Tarrytown House Estate, a flirtatious spirit named Lily got a little too comfortable on his live stream. Then she followed him to home. Gary and John discuss the consequences of altered states of "intent,” why alcohol and ghost hunting don't mix, and whether it can be considered cheating if it’s with a ghost. From there the guys dig into some genuinely wild paranormal theory: entities that evolve over time, a possessed forest campsite nicknamed The Creature, water tables as spiritual conduits, and whether an 8 foot shadow figure could exist without even knowing it's terrifying anyone. There's talk of dowsing rods, ley lines, time slips, and a haunted Confederate soldier still walking someone's hallway. Real ghost stories, real paranormal investigation talk, zero filter. Splintered Spirits Live drops weekly with unscripted conversations about hauntings, spirit communication, ghost hunting equipment, and the paranormal community's strangest encounters. New episodes and guest interviews every Tuesday, live shows every Thursday. Time’s winding down to take Are You a Ghost Magnet survey at splinteredspirits.com/survey to find out if you're wired to attract the supernatural.

    Splintered Spirits Live - September 10, 2026!!!

  7. Sep 4

    Splintered Spirits Live with Fuel Neve!

    This episode of Splintered Spirits welcomes viral paranormal reaction creator Fuel Neve, for a funny, thoughtful, and unexpectedly personal conversation about ghost encounters, horror, social media, and why the paranormal does not always have to be deadly serious. Fuel shares how his loud, hilarious reactions to strange internet videos helped build his following, and why John Santa’s ghost-hunting clips are perfect material. Then things get genuinely spooky. Fuel recounts the shadowy figure known as “Old Man Mr. Fox” from his grandmother’s basement in Crown Point, Indiana, a presence his relatives later admitted they had seen too. He also relives a terrifying solo hotel stay in Inverness, Scotland, where the temperature plunged, appliances turned on by themselves, and a closet door shook from the other side. Gary, John, and Fuel get into the big question behind it all: What are spirits? From residual hauntings and intelligent entities to time, dimensions, and the possibility that paranormal experiences are something the human brain cannot fully process, this is a lively paranormal conversation with plenty of laughs, strong language, and more than a few “WTF is wrong with you?” moments!

    Splintered Spirits Live with Fuel Neve!

  8. Sep 1

    Ep 52: Shari DeBenedetti from Ghost Hunters

    What happens when a terrifying encounter in your own bedroom becomes the beginning of a life in paranormal investigation? On this episode of Splintered Spirits, Ghost Hunters and Ghost Nation investigator Shari DeBenedetti shares the chilling story that changed everything: unexplained activity in her family home, a physical encounter she still cannot explain, and a faceless doppelgänger that looked exactly like her then-boyfriend. Long before joining Jason Hawes and The Atlantic Paranormal Society, TAPS, Shari spent years investigating private cases across Massachusetts and upstate New York. She talks about building an investigative team in the 1990s, working with the limited equipment available at the time, and why a logical, evidence-first approach matters even when a case becomes deeply personal. She also tells stories that never made it to television, including the moment a skeptical engineer was violently thrown across a room. From Ghost Hunters to Ghost Hunters Returns, this is a candid, funny, and unsettling conversation about spirits, fear, skepticism, and the real work of helping people feel safe in their own homes again. If you love paranormal podcasts, true ghost stories, haunted-house investigations, EVP evidence, or behind-the-scenes stories from the Ghost Hunters universe, press play and dive into the conversation.

    Ep 52: Shari DeBenedetti from Ghost Hunters
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Ratings & Reviews

4.8
out of 5
29 Ratings

About

What are spirits, really? Splintered Spirits explores the afterlife, ghosts, and the mysteries of human consciousness. Hosted by producer Gary Shapiro (the uneasy novice) and his nephew John Santa of Santa Paranormal (the experienced researcher), this podcast bridges the gap between the physical and spiritual worlds. Tune in for unnerving, funny, and thoughtful interviews or on-location experiments with psychic-mediums, parapsychologists, ghost hunters, witches and everyday people who have pierced the veil.

Information

  • Creator
    with Gary and John
  • Years Active
    2025 - 2026
  • Episodes
    142
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © with Gary and John
  • Show Website
    Splintered Spirits

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