Afterlight Box: Does it Work (and How to Use It)

The Afterlight box is a common choice for beginners getting into spirit communication.

The Afterlight box (and tools like it) is an easy-to-use electronic spirit communication tool. It tries to filter out the background noise and form words to allow some basic communication with the spirit realm.

It’s probably not going to get you a complete conversation, but with some patience and practice, it’s a pretty high-quality tool and beats a lot of the apps hands down. This kind of setup used to take a lot of specialized equipment but technology is bringing ghost hunting to the hands of more people.

So what is it, does it work and how do you use it?

What Is the Afterlight Box?

A simple bit of software designed to help filter out messages from the spirit realm and make it easier for us to understand.

It’s basically a software version of a spirit box and one of the more common pieces of paranormal software you’ll see used. (I’ll go over the comparison between the two in a moment).

Using the Afterlight Box: A Quick Guide

Setting Up the Afterlight Box

I’ve seen it combined into specific bits of equipment and some hunters fuse this software with their actual spirit box but it can be run on just your standard computer. No need for pedals and noise reduction, it does everything for you.

It’s a (free) download for Windows computers and available from ExtremeSenses (you can download it here if you haven’t already – just scroll down to the final section). Install and run the software – no complicated settings or hardware required.

Running It

I don’t tend to use the music import feature or anything like that. I don’t want to miss any important words that come through. You might need to swap through Bank A, B and C depending on where you are and the activity in your area.

This leads me to the most important part…

Positioning

Where you are matters, so ideally running this on a laptop means you’re able to move to different rooms or areas if needed.

You can begin an Afterlight Box session by trying to get in contact with a particular person from the spirit realm or just let it run and see who (or what) comes through. It’ll work best if you know there’s a spirit in the area and even better if you know more details about them.

The videos below show an example of both sessions.

Patience and Listening

I know, I know. The bane of every ghost hunter. You’ll near non-stop noise come through and our job is to keep communicating and reaching out while shifting the settings. There are no rules here, just trial and error. If you kill too much of the background noise you might miss the actual messages. Ghost hunting like this is as much art as it is science. What works for one spirit or area won’t work for another.

Not every session is going to work. Sometimes you’ll get little to no communication or sometimes you’ll get a few chance words that won’t relate to your questions. As with any kind of spirit communication you shouldn’t expect to see results right away. Be patient.

When you do hear something, you’ll hear the words translated by the app (so make sure your volume is up or you have headphones on). You’ll also see the words translated into text on the bottom right of the tool.

Is Afterlight Useful Ghost Box Software?

It’s certainly what I would consider entry-level but it’s a common pick for beginner ghost hunters. Your results with it will vary depending on where you are but I tend to prefer using software on a computer rather than a phone (if that’s your only option) because there’s generally a lot of interference with a phone.

How Does it Compare to Physical Spirit Boxes?

If I’m perfectly honest – it doesn’t. For a free bit of software it does a pretty good job but a high-quality spirit box like the P-SB7. We can’t expect it to as the hardware there is designed for spirit communication while an app or software just has to make do with what it can get.

ExtremeSenses software makes a couple of well-known software tools for ghost hunting. As ghost hunting tools go they’re a good way to get started but if you really want to take your hunting further you’ll eventually need to upgrade.

Afterlight Box Videos

There are a lot of videos around from ghosthunters using the Afterlight box. I prefer watching ones from experienced ghost hunters and these are two interesting examples. The first is in a cemetery without a specific spirit in mind and the second is reaching out to someone who has passed on.