Dan Aykroyd’s great-grandfather wrote spooky seances in the early 1900s. They inspired the ‘Ghostbusters’ movie.

Ghostbusters premiered in 1984 with a stacked Hollywood cast. The film is a hit overall, but it’s especially popular around Halloween. Actor Dan Aykroyd, who played Dr. Raymond “Ray” Stantz in the film franchise, also co-wrote the movie. Aykroyd drew inspiration for the film from his great-great-grandfather, Dr. Sam Aykroyd, a spiritualist and paranormal researcher. On Instagram, he shared a personal item from his great-great-grandfather’s studies with his followers: a book of handwritten séances. He captioned the post, “These are my great-grandfather Dr. Sam Aykroyd’s transcripts from the Seances he hosted in the Old Farmhouse. It was the spirit of his work passed down through the generations that inspired my interests. He’s the original Ghostbuster.” Aykroyd’s family history with the paranormal Dr. Samuel Augustus Aykroyd was born in Ontario, Canada, in 1855. The oldest of 14 children, he started his career as a school teacher before becoming a dentist by 1892, according to an excerpt from A History of Ghosts (published by Penguin Random House), written by Peter Aykroyd (Dan’s father) and Angela Narth, with a foreword provided by Dan himself. His interest in spiritualism developed during his dentistry work when he studied hypnotism as a way to help his patients undergoing “primitive” dental work. Spiritualism is defined as “a nineteenth-century social and religious movement that derived its appeal from spirit communications and evidence in support of survival after death,” per The Encyclopedia of Ghosts and Spirits by Rosemary Guiley. Dr. Aykroyd believed “the human personality survives after bodily death” and accepted the idea that “those with biological life have the ability to communicate with those who appear to be minds without bodies.” That included channeling spirits through séances. These are my great-grandfather Dr. Sam Aykroyd’s transcripts from the Seances he hosted in the Old Farmhouse. It was the spirit of his work passed down through the generations that inspired my interests. He’s the original Ghostbuster. pic.twitter.com/qpXud3IKsV— Dan Aykroyd (@dan_aykroyd) October 21, 2026 The inspiration for Ghostbusters In A History of Ghosts, Dan’s father, Peter Aykroyd, writes that Ghostbusters was inspired directly by Dr. Aykroyd’s beliefs. “In 1984, the year of Ghostbusters‘ release, it became the most successful comedy in film history (to date, it has been seen by a billion people), and it was absolutely and directly derived from the blue trunk [found by him in the family’s old home]. I only hope Grandpa knows what fun he started!” he wrote. During a 2024 interview with CBS Mornings, Dan Aykroyd shared that his family’s history with spiritualism was passed down through the generations. “My great-grandfather was a dentist in Kingston, Ontario, and he was the reviewer of psychic acts that would come through town—levitators, precipitated painters, seers, psychics—he would review them for the local paper,” he shared. He also described that the family “had séances in the old farmhouse—in the 1920s, 30s, 40s, 50s before my time,” adding later that his great-grandfather was into “mediumship” and “trans-channeling.” Aykroyd continued, “So it’s just kind of like my family business. I just grew up with that, reading all the journals and reading about his work. I inherited the family business.” The beliefs have permeated his personal life as well. “If you had to ask what my religion would be, it’s spiritualism,” he told CBS Mornings. “I believe in the survival of the soul and the spirit energy after death, but the survival of consciousness after death. That you can identify someone from the other side with a good trans-channel medium, and you can talk to those who’ve gone before.”