Are you interested in angels, demons, spirits, ghosts, monsters? Are you curious about their origins, tales, and influence upon history and on the present day? If so, sit back, relax, and welcome to Southern Demonology, the podcast that explores all of this and more.
Hello all. One that I have been looking forward to for quite a while. I have unfortunately plumbed all of my local ghost story resources. I have told all the ones that I've known. I've hit rock bottom for what even what my mom knows. And because it's the Halloween special, I really wanted to feature some great ghost stories. But the last thing I wanted to do was to go to Reddit and regurgitate cheap content because I'm not about the cheap. I am so sorry. So I started thinking, I'm like, you know what? I think I've got a really good friend who knows some stuff. And so I do. And she does.
And so I have invited her here today, and she has graciously accepted, which tickles my heart to death. You may remember her from the Aramaic Incantation Bowls episode, which was split into two parts. I think it was episode 38 and 39, if my memory serves. And she bombarded us with some of the best academic information around incantation bowls, which are such a fascinating topic. If you have not heard those, I highly recommend you go check those out. Christy is an amazing academic and even more amazing person.
And she has some stuff that I think is going to terrify and make your Halloween oh so much more spookier. Christy, how are you doing today? Um fabulous. That was uh that was an amazing intro. I really hope that I can live up to it. You're much too much.
I have lived up to it every single day I have ever talked to you. She is one of my best friends online. Love her to death. And uh yeah, so you don't have to worry about that. I I know how you are.
So you made my whole month.
Oh dear lord. If I make someone's month, then there's something wrong because it's just me. But anyway. I have been thinking about actually starting a uh a new series called Academics Talk Ghosties. If that actually happens, then this will be the inaugural episode with the lovely Chris here with us. But I know that you have told me that you have some amazing stories to share, and I, for one, would love to hear them. I know everyone else would too. So would you like to go ahead and launch into your first one?
Absolutely, yeah. It would be my pleasure. So I've got I've got three, let's do this in a in a tripartite manner, I guess. Oh, what's the word I'm looking for? Triptych. There we go. Let's do a triptych. One of these I can't prove at all, and you can believe it or not, and that's your business. The other one I can prove because there are newspaper clippings. And I'll go ahead and send them to JJ. So if you'd like to put them in the in the show notes or whatever, uh, you're more than welcome to.
And then the third bit is well, there are there is documentation, but you can't prove me wrong, which is what I care about. So technically right is the best right.
I love it.
So I I guess like the first panel of our of our trip to care, I have a relative, someone very close to me, that has been practicing tarot and all of that, you know, witchy goodness since before I well before I was born, and I'm 30 am I so um twenty-three, what? Yeah, twenty-three, yeah.
I'm joking, I'm joking, go ahead.
Yeah, uh my twenty-first birthday for a decade and a half. Anyway. So uh she I know loads of folks like don't buy into it, and that's fine, no worries. Like, I'm not here to judge, like and I am an agnostic with most things, so you know, but she has no reason to make these things up and no reason to lie to me about it. Oh JJ, I got lots of stories about her that I haven't told you either. But uh one of my favorite ones so she babysat me and my brother when we were about a year old in the mountains in New Mexico.
So this is late 80s, like eighty eight, eighty-nine and she was doing her her tarot thing and yada yada, and the town's very small and so people knew about it. And this friend of hers asked my relative to come over and and help her out. And so my new relative says, What's going on? And this family lived in this home and they had just had a baby and then they had a little girl that was maybe three or four-ish, like big enough to get out of bed by herself and talk, right? Like wait, children are odd for me.
Like they have certain stages where like you can't hold your head up, you don't have kneecaps yet, and now you can get up and talk and kind of make sense, and then like I don't know, like seven, then on till puberty or five. So my relative goes over there and the mother's talking about how she'll, you know, leave the baby in the stroller because the baby will sleep in the stroller and and stuff, and like it'll like she'll be able to do dishes or do, you know, whatever. And if she leaves the room and turns to come back, then the stroller will be like in the doorway. She's like, excuse me.
And it happens a lot, you know, or she'll leave the stroller in you know, the living room and then go over to the kitchen and she can still see the stroller or whatever, and she'll start doing the dishes and turn around and the strollers move again. And she's freaking her out. But the thing that's really bothersome is that this little girl will just wake up screaming. And they thought maybe she was having night terrors at first, you know, because that's pretty common for children that age and for you know people.
But uh but she would wake up and she would say that someone's like in her face and like watching her sleep, and she wouldn't go to sleep, and it was just awful, awful, awful kept going on. And so my relative went over there and this woman was like, I think something, you know, and I'm sure like cabinets would be open or closed or like random things like that, but never anything like malicious, right? Like it was never anything that was like bothersome in in that sense, from the film polterized or anything like that.
And so this lady was like, Yeah, like whatever it is, like it doesn't have to leave, but this kind of stuff has to stop. This is this isn't okay. And so my relative was communicating with this spirit entity being, whatever you want to call it. And I remember the thing that struck me there are two things about this story that that keeps it one of my favorites.
So my relative is is you know communicating and she told me that she said, Oh, Chris, you know, I I always thought, you know, if a person was slow, like you know, handicapped mentally, I always thought if they were slow, it was due to some kind of a physical issue, some kind of a physical, you know, manifestation, right? Like that causes the synapses to not work properly, like however you want to describe that. And she said, but it was the damnedest thing because when I was talking to I mean, I'm gonna say him, they I don't know. I use I just use him for most things, so like my car's a boy.
So anyway, so don't take that as the gospel truth. But she said they both have said, you know, but I was when I was talking to him, I got this feeling of like being slow. She said she'd never experienced that before or since and just thought it was really interesting, and so do I. And she's further communicating with this being a spirit thing, guy and uh nowhere man. And my relative asked, like, what's up with the stroller? Like, why do you keep moving things around? Like it's what's up, like it's it's in a certain place for a reason.
And he said, Well, I'm afraid that uh, you know, the baby's gonna get hurt, and like it's not being watched all the time, and they have to watch it all the time, essentially, is like the gist of what was going on. And so he would move the stroller to make sure that you know nobody forgot about the baby or whatever. And you know, my relative is like, Okay, we you gotta cut that out. And then my relative asks, So what's up with this little girl? Like, what are you doing with this little girl? Like, I heard you've been watching her sleep, and like that's creepy. What are you doing?
Like, why like why are you scaring her? Because like anybody would be scared if somebody's like eating a breaks when you're sleeping. Right.
And this is a second part that struck me. And he said, I like her breath. And that's creepy.
Yeah, but it's but it's I think it's I think it's kind of endearing because if you're not alive, you don't need to breathe. Like you can still watch the passage of time, you can still do lots of other things, you know, if we're gonna go with the idea that you still are sentient and of yourself or whatever, whatever that means to you. But if uh if you're not alive, you don't need to breathe. And so like that's that's why he would watch her because he that was something that uh that uh he enjoyed it. And so I I thought that was really interesting.
This is creepy for two reasons that I at least I can think of, and I would love to know your thoughts on it. Uh first, uh I can understand that you know, if someone is uh mentally handicapped, then yes, it is due to a physical condition in the brain or somewhere around it. But to have that then shape a person's existence, spirit, whatever you want to call it, to past death, that is I have never even considered that possibility. And that is just that's more frightening than anything else I could think of.
Yeah, and and and that's something that I've thought of as well. And I don't if she ever did tell me then I've forgotten. But I don't know that she ever like was able to confirm that this entity or whatever like had been living previously. And so you know, like take that with a grain of salt, because I I don't recall either way. But no, you're you're completely right. Like I think that's very interesting.
And if you go with the idea of like what you love and what makes you happy and what makes you comfortable while you're living, is what you'll get when you're dead, then if that's how that you know, if it was a person, let's pretend if that's how that person was, then maybe that's how that worked out. Like I'm gonna completely nerd out here for a second, but there's an episode of Supernatural that is my absolute episode, like absolute favorite episode.
And it's like during the apocalypse arc and it's centralized like around Castell, and he talks about how about how he goes and visits like everyone gets their own heaven, like that'll be like perfect for them.
And Castell talks about how his favorite heaven to visit was this like perennial, like sunny Tuesday afternoon where this man is just flying a kite and it was he was I don't I don't recall if he was autistic, I don't recall like what kind of and I'm gonna I'm gonna caveat here, like I'm not trying to say that like I'm not trying to like shame people for any kind of like disabilities or anything like that. Like I ha I struggle myself with mental health problems, like my brother is autistic, like I'm not trying to like that's kind of like oh like I can't be racist because my friend's black.
But like so when I use these terms, like I'm not trying to to sound dismissive or anything like that.
Oh and you're not. No, I I get where you're coming from totally. Don't worry about that.
Okay, because like I know sometimes like I my sarcasm and my normal speaking voice can sound very similar, and I don't want to come off as insensitive. But anyway, so back to the episode.
So No, trust me, you your sincerity is ringing for you, I promise you.
Okay, okay, good, because like that's always something that I try to be aware of and like not sound like a douche. But yeah, so th this episode, like it was this this man that had died like in the bathtub, and he was autistic and he died in the bathtub, and his favorite, like his his forever heaven is just this forever sunny Tuesday afternoon flying a kite in the yard. And like that's all that would make him happy.
So I went on that tangent to say if you're we are beings that are created once and not reincarnated or not some kind of amalgamation of other things, then if that's what you're accustomed to and what you enjoy, then maybe even if you are offered something else, then you don't want it. What do you think?
First, I have I have yet to proceed out of season one of Supernatural. Not because I don't like it, I just have never had the chance to watch it. So um, yeah, I can't really end after the apocalypse arc.
After the apocalypse arc, it all goes downhill. It's awful, it's garbage. But anyway, but the apocalypse arc is fantastic.
Well, the first season is nothing to write home about. That's why it's been a bit of a struggle to even get past it.
But it's it's very monster elite, which even even with your love of Japanese media.
Yeah, oh god. Um, if you have not, I think I'm actually going to talk about this on my bites episode. But if you get the chance, if you happen to have a shutter account, or you can find it elsewhere, but it is a Japanese movie from the 60s called A Hundred Monsters. It is fantastic. Like extremely monsters. There there are. There's not really quite that many, maybe, but they do show. Well, then okay, no, no, no.
That it's a lie right out the gate. Do not want it.
But it features the best one, which is Kamikasa, the umbrella monster, and oh god, it's just such a good movie. I was really happy to watch that. You know, it has nothing to do with this.
That sounds awesome and terrifying, but also funny. And like that sort of like uh like like horror of the mundane, like taken to like its logical conclusion, I think, right?
Like it yeah, it's kind of like a regular samurai type of show where the rich are perpetrating evil and there's a lone samurai who comes along to try to help, but then there are these ghosts which are being upset because the what is it, the the rich lord wants to tear down their shrine.
So it's Alex Jones who wrote a fan fiction about himself as a samurai, is what you're saying.
Pretty much. Oh my god, that guy's it would be good, baby.
And that sounds awesome. Like, no joke.
Is I get your point that you brought up about if you're dead and you still have a living consciousness, then perhaps you know that's one thing that you like. But two other possibilities are, you know, one, if this thing was not ever alive, then that by necessity makes it demonic, at least within my limited worldview, I guess you could say. And that has a whole nother set of ramifications. But the thing I was really going after is it just brings to mind all of these medieval tales of cats or spirits that would sit on the chest and draw out the breath and absorb life.
And yeah, yeah, no. And and and I totally get you with like with the with the demonic facet of that. Like obviously that sort of depends on where you where you start from, right? Right.
And I think that you and I start from different places in that respect. The hag on the chest to the witch on the chest, like the sleep paralysis. And thankfully I've I've not experienced sleep paralysis because I hear it's absolutely terrifying. But yeah, like that feeling of like that pressure on your chest, like just in and of itself.
But you're right, like you're having this happen to you, and the only explanation is demons, and so you know, you had some weird half-asleep vision, and like right, like there's a witch on your chest or a cat, and like they're breathing out this quite literal, like necessary life force, right? Like you can go without eating or drinking for so long, but like you really kind of need to breathe, like you know.
Exactly. Have you ever seen the movie The Nightmare?
I don't think so. No, but it sounds scary. Is it a nightmare?
So we watched it it very well could. It's probably the creepiest documentary that I have ever seen. We watched it as part of our regular Wednesday movie nights for our Discord server, but it's all about sleep paralysis and the That these people relate are just creepy, but in a lot of these people, they have suffered from some leave it open to like maybe it's an alien, some leave it to, you know, it's probably demonic. And the people that have suffered from these sleep paralysis episodes for the majority of their lives, they are just wrong.
Like there is something so wrong with how they behave and act. And that was the creepiest part to me of the entire thing. But no, it's a phenomenal movie.
I'm gonna look that one up. Like, yeah, I mean, like my my armchair psychologist is like going absolutely insane right now. But I mean, you know, so I've had lucid dreams. Uh there was a string where I was having like lucid nightmares, and I went into shock after one of them. Like I woke up and was talking to my buddy who uh uh uh worked in EMS at the time, he's like, Alright, so you're in mild shock, get up and have a cigarette, take a bath, you'll be fine. And I was like, dude, Sean, I I had a dream. And he's like, Yeah, it's alright.
But yeah, I mean, like there was there was one nightmare that I couldn't wake myself up from, and that's like a whole other story. I mean, if we want to talk creepy dreams and stuff, then we can do that.
I do want to talk about one thing with you.
Yeah.
I have been delving deeper and deeper into TikTok. Don't hate me for that. Nah. Maybe it's because I'm subscribed to every paranormal creator that I can get my hands on and they in turn have begun to subscribe to me. But there is this subset of videos that are all talking about lucid dreaming, and they always pose one of two questions. When you're lucid dreaming, go up to the person or people in your dream and either ask them, you know, this is a dream, right? Or can you tell me the date and time? And people will do anything and everything for their moment in the limelight.
So I take all of this with heaping mountains of salt. But the reactions are pretty similar to each other. It's either the people they're talking to, if they're laughing, they will just go deadpan still and look at them. And usually their eyes were turned black, and they will say, We don't speak of such things here. Or they turn like you know, they morph into something awful. Um and I I can't lucid dream to save my life. I've never had a lucid dream in my life.
So in the fact to hear that you just brought that up, it it was just that's the first thing that sprung to mind of oh my god, if you ever lucid dream, ask this, because I am dying to know.
That's yeah, like it was it was weird because like a lot of so like a lot of my lucid dreams were tactile. The one that I mentioned that that gave me the the mild case of shock. Long story short, um I was shot in the chest multiple times. And I remember like I was breathing, but I remember feeling like the blood like filling out my lungs. And I remember thinking, Am I dying? Like, is if this is dying, it does it doesn't really hurt like they said it would. And like I started getting tunnel visioned. Uh you know, everyone's like, Oh, you can't die in a dream or whatever. No, no, no, I died.
Like I died, and then I woke up. Like, I died.
I am so glad that you said that. Not that you died, that's that that's the awful oh my god, that was an awful way of of saying that. No.
I mean, I can guarantee you that someone somewhere has said it unironically, so it's alright.
I have died multiple times in my sleep in dreams, and I whenever there's supposed to be pain, that's the one thing that's always absent. Like I never feel the pain. Like one time I I was like in this dystopian sci-fi kind of like video game experience, and someone pointed a type of plasma rifle at me and shot me, and I like my entire skin just disintegrated off of my bones. And but I I didn't feel it. That's the thing. I like my brain was screaming at me, oh my god, such excruciating pain. But yeah, the reality was there was just nothing there.
Yeah, I I'm trying to remember I don't recall because I mean god, like this is friggin' like ten or twelve years ago at this point. The super scary one, because it's a long story. The super scary one, uh because like there were lots of them that you know something would be happening, it'd be a nightmare, and I'd be like, hang on, this is some bullshit. And like then I'd be able to like turn it around or like wake myself up.
And like I don't I don't recall ever being able to do cool stuff like flying, but like whatever the bad thing was, I could, you know, it would stop because I'm like, this is stupid, this is a dream, like you have to do what I tell you to do. But like I never said it out loud, it was just kind of like me talking in my head as I assume other people do, like thinking to myself, but like the the the one super scary one, like I I legitimately like woke myself up screaming is how I woke up. It oh god, it I mean if if you want to do a little clip, then I can tell you. I felt lots of things.
There was no pain involved. I was grabbing at things, like I I I I felt everything that I touched. But the part that was that was terrifying was that I was like, oh no, scary thing is happening. I'm like, cool, time to wake up and time to wake up, time to wake up.
I couldn't speak in my dream at all, like even if I wanted to, like I couldn't move my mouth and you know, and I was like, This doesn't happen, I know more people, this isn't happening, like you know, and so like it like that was that was absolutely terrifying part is like I knew it was a dream and I knew I was gonna wake up and I couldn't make it happen. And like that was absolutely terrifying. Like like one of my like big things, like for my whole life. So all your armchair shrinks out there can have a go at me.
My whole life I've had nightmares about spiders because screw spiders, they're terrifying, they're great. I I can't handle it. I can't, I can't, I can't do it.
Like, I will send you pictures of all my pet arantulas.
Do you really have petulant?
No, dear lord, no. I have dolls. That is the limit of my pet ownership.
Oh man. So like spiders and then um the general theme of uh being taken somewhere I don't want to go and no one will help me. That specific that specific theme of like someone making me do something or like physically taking me somewhere and I can't get help. And so whatever that says about me as a person, but that was like part of that super scary dream. And yeah, yeah, it was it was it was absolutely terrifying. Like absolutely terrifying. And that had to be war. Yeah, like so okay, so I've talked around it.
It was it was it there's a little there's a little alien man, but like I remember what he was wearing. He was wearing a suit. I could tell you exactly what it looked like, I could tell you what my apartment looked like. It was like it was everything. It yeah, like it was absolutely terrifying. Yeah, and uh, and so like in my in my head, I started like screaming at this little alien man like in my head. I'm like, dude, f you like go f myself. I'm not going anywhere.
Because like I was like hovering in this dream, and so I was like in my bedroom, and so I kept like trying to like grab things to pull myself down. So I was trying to like grab my bookcase because I was like, Oh cool, I'm floating. And like my whole body felt like pins, like you know, like the tingling pins and needles, but like not when it hurts and not when it's super ticklish, but when it just kind of like feels kind of cool that feeling, but like on my whole body, and I was like floating in the air, and I was like, Oh, this is rad. Like, am I gonna get like a flying dream finally?
And I was just kind of like floating around my bedroom and like really slowly, but like I was like, you know, I'd bump into the wall and again super slowly, so it didn't hurt at all. And then like I bounce off of that and bump into the bookcase. I'm like, okay, like after a while I was like, All right, this is boring, I can't control anything. And like I couldn't really move my head a whole whole lot. And so like I tried to grab my bookshelf and you know, pull myself down, and like that didn't work.
And I had a pile of blankets in the corner that I ended up in, and then I tried to grab a couple of different ones of those to try and like get something like to I guess like subconsciously try and like ground myself, right? And I remember like the feel of like the different blankets, like they were each made of different material and that didn't work. And so I'm like, alright.
And so the way my apartment was is like I had a really large like living room area and that and one entire wall was a um I was on the third floor, so it was like a a patio deck balcony or whatever, but that entire wall was like a sliding glass door. So it was like the whole thing. And so in in this dream I started floating out of my bedroom and so if you imagine it kind of like a T, like the my bedroom and bathroom were directly across from each other, and then the rest of it was the you know, the living area and like the kitchen. And it was all kind of just like one big room.
And so I'm starting to float out like at an angle and like I managed to move my head a little like enough and like there's a little gray man standing there. And I was like, excuse me I was like, Sorry? And he was standing there like staring out my patio door. I mean it was closed and I was on again, I was on the third floor, so I never locked it.
And it was closed, and he was just standing there and it was light outside and I could see him, but and he was a a little gray man, but but he was silver because he was he was wearing like a silver jumpsuit, like it had like a little like zipper with like a little like key ring at the neck, like so you could just like pull it down and wearing like a helmet that made him look like a little gray man. Like the standard, like what you you know, what you would imagine. Yeah, but he was wearing you know, he was wearing a a suit of some kind.
Like it's not I don't have no idea what it looked like, actually. And so I'm sitting there and I'm floating and I start to like slow, like slowly float toward him. And that's when I'm like, okay, time to wake up. Cool, this is cool, and I think but time to wake up. And like I wasn't waking up, and I was like, this doesn't happen. Like this isn't happening. And I was like, this is a free hand, like it's time to wake up now, like let's go. And I could I could turn my head like just enough, like to be able to like keep him in the periphery. And I'm getting closer towards him.
And this turns his head and looks at me and I freaked out. I was like calling every name under the sun and then some, and I was just like, F you, like, we're not doing this, like you know, this is a dream. This doesn't happen to real people. This is not a thing that's happening, and it surely isn't happening to me. It's time to wake up, and this is a dream, and we're not doing this, and like go f you and you're not taking me anywhere, and like, you know, just like railing.
And the last thing I remember is like, because like again, like I couldn't open my mouth, like I couldn't do anything, which I thought was also like like that was like a new thing. And I woke myself up screaming because I said, for the love of God, won't somebody help me? And that's what woke me up.
Then I went Oh my gosh.
Isn't that ridiculous? Like it's it's funny hearing it, like, because like who talks like that? Like, for the love of God, won't somebody help me?
Somebody think of the children, but yeah, like no, no, that's I mean, that dream is such a slow progression of terror because you you find yourself floating, okay, that's fine, but then you can't control it. Okay, that's weird, and then you can't break out of it.
I was so bored! The thing I was so bored during it, I was like, all right.
You know, oh my god, way to ratchet up the action throughout the entire thing. Holy crap!
Right, and I can't write stories to save my life, so good job, brain. Way to waste all that potential.
Well, it's better than my normal, which is to be trapped in a house and uh, you know, a horde of zombies is trying to devour you. So yeah, I've got weird dreams too. I'm there with you on that one. All right, so we have uh is there anything more to this particular story before we move on to the next one?
No, no, no, no, no.
Okay. Then why don't you take it on with the second piece of the trifecta or triplet, whatever you're calling it?
Yeah, all of these things. All all the tries, whatever you want. Oh shoot. The triforce.
Yeah, yes.
Thank you for listening to Southern Demonology. Find us online at Southern Demonology.com where you can find all of our social and podcasting links. Also, if you have a moment, please feel free to rate this podcast and leave any encouraging feedbacks that you may have. As always, I am JJ and it has been a pleasure getting to talk to you today.