EAST LONGMEADOW – When the word “spirit” is spoken in casual conversation, one might think of ghosts, the supernatural, and overall spookiness.

Psychic Medium Lisa Lanno’s spirit connection – a benefit fundraiser for the historic 1880s Norcross House – wasn’t about the cliché encounters with spirits that one would expect. It was about a group of people coming together to find a little solace in the death of loved ones.

However, it wasn’t an emotional draining experience, far from it. Lanno, a short woman with blonde hair in her 60s, has a persona somewhere between a wisecracking stand-up comic and a sympathetic grief counselor. Through the more than two hours of spirit summoning, both aspects were readily on display.  

I want to say from the get-go that I’m someone who doesn’t dismiss the ideas of spirits with a disparaging laugh. As a reporter, it’s best to be open to different perspectives about life even if it’s about the afterlife. After all, that’s one of the major tenants of most major religions.

Lanno, a resident of South Hadley, started by telling the audience she’s never 100 percent right.

“That’s how you spot a fraud,” she said. “Is your doctor always right?”

She explained her method – usually a couple of days before a spirit connection she receives mental images of spirits – she writes down notes such as this woman was a “shy girl” or this man rode a motorcycle.

Then, when she’s at the event, she asks audience members whether her descriptive notes of the spirit match with any audience members. She noted that the spirit contacting her might not even be from the same state – it could be a deceased person from Wisconsin trying to contact their loved ones.

So, how do audience members connect with spirits from the other side?  

She encouraged audience members to raise their hands even if one detail made sense for the spirit they were trying to contact and everything else was wrong.

“One brings in the other,” Lanno explained.

She also began by stating that there is a huge difference between spirits and ghosts. Spirits are the dead that have passed over, while ghosts are those that don’t want to move onto the afterlife. So, no we didn’t get to see or talk to any ghosts.

A common question she typically receives from audience members is whether spirits visit her all the time. She said, “Do you really want your grandmother visiting you all the time?”

There were a lot of readings, but these are some of the ones that stood out for me. One reading was about an “officer” who liked his appearance consistently neat, especially his socks and shoes. At first we in the audience as well as Lanno didn’t know whether he was a police officer or a member of the military.

Two people claimed this spirit, but in the end the idea that it was one middle-aged man from Longmeadow’s father seemed the most plausible based on Lanno’s descriptions. He explained that his father was retired from the military and died of cancer.

Lanno said the spirit of the father told her that he’s sorry for some of the problems that he’s caused the family.

“The one thing he wants me to tell you is that, ‘I know that nobody stopped loving me,’” she said.  “You may have hated him at times, but you still loved him.”

The one that really stuck out was one of the darker moments of the evening – a death by hanging.

The hanging victim’s spirit was a transgender man who looked like a kid with a roundish face and had pink cheeks, Lanno told the audience. She initially saw drugs involved in this case, but realized it was most likely testosterone hormones.

One woman claimed the spirit and said it was likely her niece, who was undergoing hormone therapy and passed away from hanging.

The spirit told Lanno that he was at peace in the life beyond, having become the man she always knew she was after she had passed away. Lanno said the spirit was sorry the wrong person found his body. The aunt explained that the father of the deceased had found the body.

Following an intermission, Lanno drew raffle tickets for psychic questions. A woman from the audience asked if she would be moving. Lanno told her she would either sell her house sometime next year or get serious about it during that time. She noted that she also saw that the woman would move to Europe and meet a new lover.

In the end, I don’t know whether there was any proof of people connecting with spirits. It could have all be deductive reasoning, but I like to be a little more hopeful.

Whether or not you believe or not is inconsequential. None of us will know the truth until it’s our turn to go.

It’s something to look forward to in the grim face of death. I find that strangely comforting.