A GWYNEDD ghost buster has spoken of his career exorcising the demons of north Wales.

Retired Bala publisher and Llandderfel county councillor, Elwyn Edwards, helps people troubled by ghosts, ghouls and all things that go bump in the night.

The 79-year-old Welsh speaking granddad says he is sensitive to the presence of ghosts, and is aware of them as soon as he enters a haunted building.

Dismissing the idea that ghosts are only found in spooky old houses, graveyards and castle dungeons he says you are as likely to encounter one anywhere, from a modern council house to a chip-shop.

Elwyn started honing his psychic skills about 40 years ago after his first ghostly encounter happened whilst helping to clear a house in Bala with his wife Elinor and another man.

The Gwynedd councillor for Llandderfel described the strange encounter.

“We’d gone to this old five bedroomed house in Bala to do some house clearance work, a man I had met who had lived at the house had told me there was something wrong there.

“But I knew as soon as I went in.  I felt the presence of something strange about the house.

“There was a cold, wind went round my neck and the hairs on my neck and arms started to stand on hand.

“We heard a loud bang from an upstairs room, and it kept happening, but there was nothing there, then the temperature was changing, but there was no heating there, and we kept smelling a really strange smell.

“There was a spirit energy there. I knew.”

After his initial experience he met up with a well-known psychic from Pen Llyn called Elwyn Roberts, who took him under his wing.

“I went all over the place with Elwyn, to places where people were having problems in their houses with spirits.

“Elwyn saw straight away that I was psychic and he helped me develop my ability so that I could then go out and help people.

“He showed me how to make contact with the spirit world and he hypnotised me four or five times, he trained me up, how to go into a deep trance and channel the spirit through my body.”

“I can actually feel the spirits taking over my body, I can see them right there, with the third eye you can see them as plain as day, just standing there.

“But nowadays, I can control them, if I want them there or not.

“Everyone has a spirit guide, who can help you develop your psychic ability, mine is a high priest from Greece from a couple of thousand years ago called Darcon.

“I asked Elwyn one night, ‘I’d like to meet my spirit guide’ and I was amazed as a very large dark skin man was suddenly standing beside him.

“I spoke to him in English and Welsh and then Greek words were coming into my head. Although we spoke a different language we could communicate.

“He mentioned lots of words, and then he said out loud another name that sounded like Appolonio, then I remembered my mother saying a woman was saved from the sea in a ship wreck at Pen Llyn, that had Greek name, and was talking of an ancestor of ours.”

Elwyn says he uses his spirit guide to help when he visits homes in his role as an exorcist.

“I’ll get a call to say someone is being scared or bothered by ghostly events at their house

“The spirits are often attracted to people who don’t know they are psychic, but they are also drawn to people experiencing depression,” he said.

“It is not always a spirit issue, but I will know straight away if it is.

Sometimes there is nothing there at all, but if there is usually there will be a history of things like doors opening and banging shut on their own, or rooms going hot and cold, lights flickering on and off, and smells, sometimes it is a pleasant sweet smell other times it is something horrible.”

When he first arrives at a haunted home Elwyn always starts his exorcism with a brew!

“I go to the house and we have a cup of tea, I get the feel of the place first and the people, then I ask my spirit guide to make sure that nothing will happen to harm anyone and I go into a deep trance.

“I used to only see what is happening in the spirit world, I’d get lost deep into it and the spirits would take me over, their voices and actions coming out through me.

“One time I channelled a monk, I could see a monastery, I saw flames, it was being burned down and there was a slaughtering going on, I heard the name of one of the monks and saw him being hanged

“I experienced first-hand his choking, it was terrifying, so I stopped doing it that way, it was probably one of the most scary ones I have experienced.

“Now I use a different trance where I can see what is happening in the spirit world and this world at the same time. I have more control.”

He went on, “The spirits tell me what has happened to them, I usually get their names right, usually the first name anyway, they will tell me if they have been killed in a car crash or died suddenly.

“The sudden deaths are the ones that don’t always realise they are dead, they are trapped in a dark place, they can’t move on, but I help them to move on.

“When they are gone, the house feels very different, but in some places I have sometimes have to go for a long time, as much as 18 months to two years, as as one spirit goes another will show up, it is usually someone in the house, someone’s energy they are attracted to.”

Elwyn advises anyone being troubled by spirits to know they can always ask their own spirit guide to protect them.

“You can always tell them to bugger off, ” He said.

“Just ask your spirit guide for protection and help, you just speak to yourself, and the guide will hear you.

“The spirits know they can contact some people more easily than others, but you can always block them.”

Speaking of the scepticism he has encountered, Elwyn said: “Yes, it is a job to get people to understand, this is very real for a lot of people.

“Some people are afraid to talk about ghosts because they think people will think they are bloody nuts, it is a job to get people to understand .

“I have seen it where a wife is seeing spirits and the husband is sceptical and it thinks the wife is losing the plot.

“Ghosts can turn up anywhere not just in old houses, they are as likely to be found in a modern council house or a chip shop, they are everywhere and anywhere.”

For anyone keen to know more about the spirit world, Elwyn has written two books, one Ysbridion (Spirits) and another Byd Yr Ysbridion (The World of Spirits).

Elwyn worked for Barddas a Welsh publishing company for about 30 years, and also in the Welsh book shop in Bala. He is married to Elinor and has two children and three grandchildren.