Abstract: Electric polarizabilities, radiative lifetimes, relative decay branching ratios, and photoionization cross sections of several low-J states of atomic barium ranging in energy from 35,500 to 36,500 cm−1 are investigated. The states of interest are excited (in an atomic beam) via a two-photon transition or via an intermediate odd-parity state with a sequence of two electric-dipole one-photon transitions induced by laser pulses. The odd-parity states can be excited due to the Stark-induced mixing (due to an applied do high-voltage field) with even-parity states. The polarizabilities of four even-parity states and three odd-parity states are measured via direct spectroscopy on the second-stage transition. Several states have tensor and scalar polarizabilities that exceed the values that might be expected from the known energy levels of barium by more than two orders of magnitude. Two of the Stark-induced transitions could not be identified from the known energy spectrum of barium. The observations suggested the existence of unidentified odd-parity energy states, whose energies and angular momenta were determined in the present experiment. A tentative identification of these states as [Xe]6s8p 3 P_0,2 is suggested. The radiative lifetimes of five even-parity states are determined by fitting the temporal fluorescence signal due to the spontaneous decay with an exponential function. We found that there is a disagreement between this work and an earlier measurement for the 6s7d 3D_1,2 states. The relative decay branching ratios of 5d6d 3 D₁ → 6s6p 3P_0,1,2 are measured. They deviate from our naive prediction with the assumption of pure configurations of atomic states by ∼10%, which probably results from the strong configuration mixing of the 5d6 d 3D₁ state. The photoionization cross section of two even-parity states are measured. The dependence of the cross sections on the relative polarizations of the atoms and the ionization laser beam is observed. Two of three parameters defined here to describe this dependence are determined for the 6s7 d 3D₂ state.