People often told Honolulu author Glen Grant that the spirits in the ghost stories he shared would haunt him if they disapproved of the way he described their demonic tales.

But Grant possessed what every ghost craves: the power to scare people witless.

After the late storyteller spooked an audience at nighttime events — unleashing imaginations with ghosts from neighborhoods they knew — people refused to walk across dark parking lots alone. They went to the bathroom in pairs. They held hands for reassurance.

"No one could make you as scared as he could," said longtime friend Arnold Hiura. "That was his gift."

Before his death in 2003, Grant spent more than three decades collecting ghost stories from Hawai'i's varied ethnic communities.

Through a series of books, a radio show and tours of haunted places, Grant became the state's foremost expert on the supernatural, the unexplained and the downright creepy. It's the reason the Japanese Cultural Center of Hawai'i chose to honor Grant this month with a special place in its current exhibit, "Obake Odyssey."

The cultural center, located in Grant's favorite neighborhood, Mo'ili'ili, created the exhibit to show how the ghosts of traditional Japanese folklore had become part of Hawai'i culture. But the exhibit, which features videotaped stories from Grant, is part tribute as well.

The center considers Grant "the father of the modern obake stories."

"He was sort of the catalyst for this," said Mandy Westfall, programs director for the center. "If you are from Hawai'i, you know ghost stories are part of the Hawai'i identity."

Westfall never knew Grant, but in watching videos of his tales she discovered his storytelling skill.

"He drew you in," she said. "He made you want to know more."

Grant made obake, a Japanese term meaning "strange, frightening creature," a term of endearment among those who loved a good scare. In Hawai'i, obake has come to mean a ghost of any ethnic background, largely because of the way Grant popularized it.

Hiura said his friend believed that ghosts were something that all cultures had in common.

"It was his belief that the ghost stories were something that bound people together," Hiura said. "Ghosts were something that the people of Hawai'i shared — a belief and a love and an interest in the supernatural."

Grant arrived in the Islands in 1970 as a graduate student in American Studies at the University of Hawai'i. He soon discovered that just about everyone — from students in classes he helped teach to their grandparents and neighbors — had a family ghost story or a personal experience with the supernatural.

When Grant subsequently learned that few of the stories had ever been researched and collected, he recruited other students, and the hunt was on for tales of the dead.

"He would take his students out on these field trips," Hiura said. "Pretty soon word would spread and everybody would sign on."

Much of the power in Grant's stories came from his thorough research, as the scholar in him sought more than one perspective on a tale, Hiura said. Grant always based his stories on interviews, but he backed them up by reading old newspaper stories and police reports whenever possible.

Telling the stories was a practice Grant picked up from his father. The elder Grant would tell ghost stories at the family dinner table, and it wasn't long before young Glen was telling them to his friends.

The practice continued in Hawai'i, Hiura said.

"He kept the best of the stories and told them in a way that was memorable," he said. "The way he structured his stories was different. At the very end, he would give a tag line that connected everything. He always had a good ending."

Hiura edited the Hawaii Herald in the 1980s, and in 1983 he convinced Grant to allow him to publish one of his ghost stories. Readers loved it so much that Grant wrote one every year for a decade, usually around Halloween.

But convincing Grant to publish his first anthology in 1992 was difficult. Grant did not want to be accused of exploiting someone's family story, yet every religious and spiritual leader he consulted urged him to write the stories as a way to preserve them.

"They said, 'Glen, you have to tell them, that's what you're here for,' " Hiura said.

In 1994, Mutual Publishing released Grant's first book, "Obake: Ghost Stories in Hawaii." It was the first of four books on the subject. His collections included stories of a dog spirit, a supernatural lizard woman, fireballs, the choking ghost of the University of Hawai'i dormitories and one of the most famous ghosts of Honolulu: the faceless woman of the old Waialae Drive-In Theater.

Publisher Bennett Hymer said the books sell 4,000 copies a year and do well around Halloween. More than 175,000 are in print.

"He legitimized believing in ghosts in Hawai'i," he said. "Up until these books started to appear, nobody would want to tell these stories because their relatives would think they were off their rocker."

People found him easy to talk to, Hymer said.

"That was how he was able to get all these stories," he said. "He was somebody that everyone opened up to."

Hymer wasn't surprised that Grant's stories frightened readers. It's human nature, even among skeptics.

"I think all of us, when we go to bed at night and it is dark and we hear strange noises, I think we are all scaredy-cats," he said. "During the day, it's ghosts, what ghosts? But in the middle of the night, we certainly believe."

Lopaka Kapanui, a storyteller who operates his own Hawai'i ghost tours, became Grant's apprentice in 1999.

Kapanui believes the dead were not offended by the stories Grant told.

"He would have told us," Kapanui said. "Being the master ghost hunter that he was, he was also the biggest chicken around."

But none of the lesson was lost on Kapanui. Ghosts aren't to be trifled with.

"I do a prayer or offer a chant in Hawaiian at every place we go to, to ask permission and let the unseen know what our purpose is," he said. "And then we leave right after we're done."

Reach Mike Gordon at mgordon@honoluluadvertiser.com.