Episode 65 - Paranormal (Special Halloween Episode)

warning today's podcast may include

material that is

not suitable for young listeners

today on the podcast ghosts demons

and the possibility that all of this

really is just

happening in ed sheeran's dream

welcome to a very creepy special

halloween edition of religious podcasts

mmm

there's this famous hotel in colorado

that inspired stephen king's the shining

that is reportedly very haunted

lisa and i and a couple of friends once

visited the stanley hotel

to take the ghost tour

and i didn't believe in ghosts but i

thought it'd still be fun

i had never been on a ghost tour i

didn't quite know what to expect

other than some sort of dramatic

false stories about ghosts and just

thought i'd enjoy the ride

so we got there and were introduced to

our tour guide

who's just one of the members of the

staff there at the hotel

and she would tell us about these ghost

stories

that people reported and that

her and the rest of the staff reportedly

would see not just at some point but

quite regularly

she said that on these tours it was

quite regular for people to

see ghosts uh so she just kind of took

us around and told us these stories

and you know we'd walk into a certain

room and she'd say over up there in that

corner

there's often this

you know certain kind of ghost that is

seen there

[Music]

and so everybody's looking and i'm kind

of chuckling and

but also looking you know of course as a

enneagram five i have to coolly observe

and gather data

but not seeing anything nobody in our

group is seeing anything

then she takes us the tour guide takes

us into this into the basement

the bottom floor where there's this dark

room

windowless room and she says

that this is a room that has probably

the most activity in her experience

with people being able to have contact

with this little girl

who likes to hang out down there

little ghost girls are good

for horror movies for a reason

uh we were all i think probably a little

creeped out

in the story even if we didn't believe

in ghosts like

come to the dark room and listen for the

little ghost girls it's

you know still unsettling even if you

don't really think you believe in any

such things

so we go in there a little creeped out a

little spooky

she asks us if anyone would like to

speak to the ghost

because a lot of times that'll bring her

out she shuts off the lights

says this can kind of help us talk to

the ghost in here and

sometimes you can see like a little

light

and she likes to dance and she likes to

dance with people and she'll

maybe even talk to us so she asked me

first she's like

you sir would you like to start and say

something to the ghost

and i said

nah

uh you know again i didn't believe in

ghosts but

i had had enough charismatic christian

uh past in my life

to just play it safe

i'm not even you know even if there's no

ghosts

or demons or whatever what do i have to

gain here

what do i have to lose my head could

start spinning around

vomiting all over the room i suppose in

the worst case scenario

but no i just was like no no thanks she

moved on and other people

in the tour were interested in speaking

to the ghost

so they began to say that they were

friendly and they would love her to

appear and

after a little while someone noticed

a little light

and this got the room very excited

there was somebody saying look it's

right there next to your shirt it's

she's right there she's trying to hold

your hand

and everybody started kind of freaking

out

and my first thought was that's probably

an electronic device

the room continued to amp itself up and

oh my god she's here she's here

and uh eventually the tour guide

said no if this is her like there's

there you don't have any electronic

devices or

anything like that you guys said well oh

i've got a watch

pulled up his sleeve oh it was just the

watch

ghosts zero reality

all of the points ever there's a popular

ted talk by this woman named carrie

poppy who is an

investigative journalist for paranormal

activity

she started her career as a result of

some experiences she had thought she had

had that were paranormal and ended up

having a scientific explanation

and in the talk she says that after

having done 70 investigations

that she would love to tell you that 9

times out of 10 science wins saves the

day

it's all explained but she says that

that's not true the truth is

10 times out of 10 science wins

the reality is that human brains are

meaning making machines

mammals with a highly evolved pattern

recognition mechanism

and so when we are confronted with

something we don't understand we have to

fit it into

the bigger narrative that we are telling

ourselves that our brains are telling

and this proclivity has helped humanity

survive and make babies

we create these narratives and myths of

what it means to be a person and what

the universe is and

what god is and all of the all the

stories that we tell

to create meaning for ourselves and all

of this

helps us to both recognize threats and

cooperate

with groups and all

sensory input goes through that matrix

so on one hand you would expect of

course unexplainable phenomenon are

often interpreted as

personal events from dead relatives or

demons or whatever

and in my experience the stories that

i've heard around campfires and with

friends

and in ghost tours never seem to pan out

i've always been able to find

alternative explanations that are more

grounded in science

well i guess as you'll hear almost

always

but let's not get ahead of ourselves

i've always wondered like you know if

ghosts

are real if any of this kind of stuff is

real why can't we get anything recorded

about them in a scientifically valid

peer-reviewed way

[Music]

in a society where almost everybody has

high definition video cameras as

features on

the phones and their purses and pockets

why aren't we inundated with convincing

video

about hauntings or possessions or

whatever

sure there's a picture here or a video

here of a

pattern of light or something that looks

like a person

why can't we ever get more convincing

evidence than that if this is if any of

it's real

like the great carl sagan said

extraordinary

claims require extraordinary evidence

and from what i understand thus far in

humanity's scientific

period any serious studies of the

paranormal

peer-reviewed and properly experimented

have been unable to prove that anything

that one might consider paranormal

ever happens but if we're going to be

intellectually honest and scrupulous

like we try to be around here on the

literature's podcast

can we really know that

the 10 out of 10 ratio holds up

all the way to infinity in other words

how do we know that even if science has

been able to explain

100 million of these cases

that it will be able to explain number

one hundred million and one

if we're honest with ourselves we can't

know that

we can only assume it based on a biased

epistemological framework

a framework that usually includes the

universe being seen

as sort of a dead set of eternal laws

that cannot change

a bunch of billiard balls that just are

bouncing

based on how they were set into motion

science in treating the universe as

a billiard ball table actually has a

pretty effective

predictive power in its results patterns

that happen once

tend to keep happening every day that

humans have observed has begun

with the sun rising in the east based on

that it seems reasonable to think that

tomorrow it'll happen again the sun will

keep rising

but again how can we know this

beyond a shadow of a doubt we can't we

can't know it to

absolute certainty only to what

we consider a reasonable probability

based on

previous observation experimentation

and recognized patterns most of the time

this sort of empiricism

the most effective way that we have of

predicting the behavior of the universe

this sort of viewpoint and and biased

epistemological framework

has allowed us to develop amazing

technology

and power as a species but again

if we're honest we must admit first of

all that that this is an assumption

second of all that

this assumption has its limits we have

we don't have the mechanisms

to perfectly predict

the universe at this point but it's kind

of the

science is the best tool that we have so

far

but for all we really know the sun might

not rise

tomorrow for all we really know

beyond a shadow of a doubt a giant

glowing pineapple could appear from the

north

instead so with that in mind

i'm never the person to shut down a good

campfire story because

what do i know you know i mean maybe the

computer system that holds

this simulation that we think of as a

universe has

some glitches in it or maybe

maybe their intentional uh easter eggs

in the game maybe there are aliens

or beings that exist in different

dimensions and and are just screwing

with us

or maybe people just have

really vivid imaginations and problems

with telling the truth

any way you slice it it's still

interesting

i mean a vivid imagination is a

fascinating magical miraculous thing as

well the way i see it

so it's halloween

today's podcast why not i thought

have some spooky campfire stories of

some of the things

that friends have told me the people on

the show are my friends

people that i like people that i don't

consider insane or liars

about some of the strange and paranormal

experiences that they've had

so all of these stories that you're

about to hear are reported to be true

from my friends

um and there's some some of this stuff

in here i

don't know how to answer to be honest

with you i don't know

how science can answer some of these

scenarios

other than just saying no you have to be

lying that can't be true

or that you were delusional in some way

so

i'm gonna we're gonna play these stories

for you fun thing about this episode i'm

gonna play you

and science mike who has not been part

of the creation of this podcast

purposefully i'm going to play it

for him and then we will share with you

his response

which i assume is going to be something

along the lines of

i have no doubt that these people think

they experienced these things

but then again that would just be an

assumption

for me based on previous observation

perhaps

this could be number 100 million and

one and a true and unexplainable anomaly

will happen

right before our ears

this first story was told to me by my

friend warren we'll title it the

jealous poltergeist so i was living in a

house

in atlanta it was an old uh college

originally built but it was used as a

hospital during the civil war

then around 19 early 19th century it

was turned into an all-girls school and

it was that from like

for like 50 years till like the mid and

last century so that's kind of the

history of the place

uh big properties i don't know how many

apartments were there there was upstairs

and downstairs

long story short there was two ghosts in

the house for sure

so one of them was introduced to me i

was little studio and i had wood floors

and i had like a futon bed so i would go

to bed at night

and right after i plopped into bed

i would it sounded like somebody was

just behind me like

flip put uh powder or whatever you want

to refer to it as

and i didn't think about think anything

of it and and then a few nights will go

by and it happened again

and it happened multiple times so i'm

like

okay something's going on then flash

forward however

many weeks or whatnot i was in my

bathroom and i was shaving in the mirror

and the bathroom door is open and as i

was shaving

that's when i saw the ghost

um it appeared right behind me it just

went right behind me and as i saw it in

the mirror i turned my head to try and

catch it for real and it

you know it was gone past the door and i

put my head out and there was nothing

there

you know to see and i'm like okay i got

a ghost

so what did you say you saw it what did

it what'd it look like so it at

when i saw at that time the first time

it was uh literally

like it fema it looked like a female

figure like a white

sort of a white gown on uh it was all a

white

uh figure um i couldn't make out a face

or anything like that it was like

profile like she just scooted by but the

sense was that

to me that it was a female figure

so the next thing uh happened this

friend

who's a just a girlfriend of mine a

platonic girlfriend of mine

was supposed to come stay with me and

for like three weeks

so i came home early in the morning and

um she's up wide awake fully dressed

and like looks like she was in tears

like very frightened

and like what's going on and

she's uh her bags are packed and she's

like it whispered in my ear

[Music]

i'm like what are you talking about

whispering it says it whispered in my

ear to leave you alone

like leave him alone

so she left she found

some other somebody else at the games to

look you know to

crash at so she left my place you know i

was single at the time so i was dating

different women

and my ex-girlfriend came by

came for the weekend and crashed a

little

you know rendezvous after uh being

broken up and the only picture i

have of anybody it was a picture of her

and i had it

on a shelf by the door with some tapes

and books

so like three four days after she left

we spent the weekend together

i come home and i open the door and i

step into a broken

frame glass of the picture of my

ex-girlfriend i literally stepped right

on it

broken glass everywhere and i turned

around like what the fuck is going on

and i look up

and i'm like i just assumed like the

shop must have fell off the wall and i

expected to see everything

on the floor but the books and the tapes

on the shelf and everything was

imperfect

nothing was moved i i don't know what

happened somehow

that frame of my ex-girlfriend had

gotten blown off that shelf

and cracked right on the floor and it

was perfectly positioned so when i

opened the door i stepped right on it

the plot continues to thicken so then i

started seeing a

girl who was recently uh single

she was my neighbor she lived in the

apartment on the opposite side of

the hallway of me and coincidentally

after talking to her and finding out

she had a ghost which she thought was a

male ghost with a really bad temper she

had all kinds of things going on in her

house like things were moving

and flying and bad energies and she was

really spooked and so

we started spending more and more time

together she was staying at my place

more and more

uh because she was just afraid to be in

her apartment same thing

i would get into bed with her and

pitter-patter

uh steps so she was the only other one

who could experience that

we were hanging out um we were on my

couch was the couch was like a love seat

like a two-seater kind of thing

and on my table was a candle a white

wax candle that was you know lit and

burning

we were fooling around we were like

making out on the couch

and she stopped for a minute and

got up and just felt like i might have

said to me i'm out of breath i can't

i can't breathe i'm having trouble

breathing i'm like what do you mean

what's going on and so she

got up she was kind of laying on me and

got up backed up and

wrapped her hands around you know her

body like her chest

like i'm not feeling well my chest is

bothering me

and i'm like okay you know i'm thinking

there's a medical emergency going on and

i'm not thinking anything else she looks

down and she's starting to have like a

glaze on her face and looks up to me and

just says i can't see you anymore

and i'm like what you know what

what did you just say and she she

couldn't then speak she to me she

she gestured towards her mouth and was

holding her chest so i kind of leaned up

and i grabbed her arms you know should

tire and comfort her like grab both

sides around like what's going on i'm

trying to hold her

she can't speak at that point and she's

feeling

all weird and so i sit back and put her

back on the couch and i sit back next to

her

and i'm holding her hands we both look

at the table

and i'm looking at her and i look at the

candle and the candle

which is white wax candle is now burning

red

it's red completely red wax and it's

burning and it's melting all over my

table

so it was a big pool of what looked like

blood it was red blood wax

she's still going through this

experience not feeling well can't speak

too correctly

and we look at each other and we look at

that and i was like right away i was

thinking

this is all fucked up something's going

on here it's not she's not having a

heart attack or anything like

something's weird going on

when we kind of looked at each other it

was like something was released on her

and she felt like she you know she could

then breathe again

and speak and she she got her wits about

her

i said to her you know you just said to

me you can't see me you know why did you

say that you can't see me anymore and

she couldn't

recall saying those words to me

so i had that candle i i still have that

candle and it's in my garden today and

to this day

i think if you dig that part of it up i

think there's still remnants of a little

red wax on it

[Music]

we stopped seeing each other she was too

spooked

we remained friends the further i was

only there for a few more months

but she couldn't deal with it anyways

back to the house before i left the

place

lying there in bed it's nighttime and i

have this sensation

that someone is sucking on my middle

finger on my right hand

it turns into i'm starting to feel

aroused

to the point where i feel like i'm

having a wet dream

but i'm looking i'm i'm white i'm

looking in my apartment i'm looking

around i'm like

i'm closing my eyes i'm tossing and

turning i'm thinking i'm trying to go to

sleep

and i'm just laying there i'm like okay

i'm just laying here and

i'm feeling aroused and i feel like

somebody is

you know sucking on my my middle finger

i don't know i open close my eyes i turn

what not next to you know i open my eyes

and

there is the woman operation who i once

saw go past me

and in full glory and it's like a young

now i can see like a young woman's

figure and face it was just it was just

like uh the entire

the entire form was was white

and so including like what would be the

face and the hair

and the what looked like she was wearing

like a flowing dress like a kind of like

a nightgown i thought she was wearing a

nightgown

and her hand was underneath my

blanket where my hand was and

that's why i had the sensation basically

she was sucking on my

finger but at the same token i felt like

i was getting a blowjob so yeah i was

kind of freaked out and i'm like okay

i'm just kind of going with experience

and of course i'm even looking around at

my apartment and i'm

looking at this thing and all this

happened probably within

a minute and a half to when i started to

first experience to the to the siding

to visualizing to feeling and then it

just stopped

and i was wide awake and i couldn't go

to sleep and i was like how am i going

to tell anybody this no one's gonna

fucking believe this story

[Music]

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actually already heard because this was

recorded on my

cell phone my voice memos while we were

all hanging out some

friends one night but this story is

pretty crazy so i thought i'd put this

one on here too

so we're staying in this airbnb and um

one of the practices

after shooting a wedding is backing up

the data you know it's about three hours

to back up all the data so she's

obviously

if it's a big day shooting a wedding so

anyways i'm backing up all this data

and i've got these portable hard drives

that uh battery powered so i'm switching

them over and i'm making sure i'm

writing them down a piece of paper

making sure i've got them all

we had already uh spent a night there

and i felt

uh i felt a little uneasy in in the

place already but i didn't really think

too much of it

so i'm downstairs and watch i've

actually had the tv on i'm watching

cartoons which i always have found

comforting so i'm watching cartoon

network

and i'm watching it and not really

paying too much attention just when

one of the hard drives you know sort of

alerts me that it's done

i mark it down cool this one's done

card 17 is backed up on this hard drive

mark it down and um you know as i keep

going through i get to pretty much

the last one and i i know it's about to

finish so i turn off the tv

and as i do um the hard drive

just starts spinning

just like this on the table in front of

me they're both going at the same time

but

one of them just starts freaking out and

in place just starts spinning and

spinning spinning the first thing i

thought was well it's got a spinning

it's got a spinning drive in it maybe

it's just spinning because it's

mechanical

but for some other reason i

thought to tell it to stop

because i was spooked by it too so i

said stop

and it did without slowing down it just

was as if an invisible hand just stopped

it

in the middle of the place and i was

spooked

out of my mind by that and so i

all of a sudden i was like caroline's

asleep and she's all the way up there

and i have to go all the way

all the way upstairs to get into bed and

be comforted by the fact that

uh that was spooky as hell um

and uh so anyways we ended up

finishing i ended up finishing what i

was doing which was

only about 90 seconds later went

upstairs

laid in bed like a crazy person staring

at the ceiling thinking

the hell was that you know and uh

eventually fell asleep but when i

actually went back downstairs

and this was a very very peculiar thing

when i went downstairs in the morning

because we had a very early flight

there was a black figure like a black

shadow

[Music]

so as i came down there down the loft

stairs

and turned the corner right there

staying in front of me

was this shadow just like projected

onto the kitchen it was defined

i mean like it was defined like against

a very white pantry

wall was this humanoid

limbed figure with shoulders and head

and everything

it was very odd because again my brain

my logical brain was like

maybe the chandelier

type fixture that was in the kitchen was

projecting

something that i hadn't noticed

previously it just wasn't there when i

came back

so i can't explain those things and i

absolutely

don't expect anyone to believe what i'm

saying

and i don't need anyone to believe it

but it freaked the hell out of me

all that stuff did i started googling

like where we were

and like had there been any odd things

that had happened

and like according to

you know the the history of what i've

found like the the whole place

had burned down several times in in

crazy

mountain fires and tons of people had

died in their homes in that exact area

and heaps of people have reported seeing

really similar stuff

i didn't know that before i went there i

just went there because i was

working and uh yeah

it's really weird so the hard drive is

there was there an

external spinning thing how could it

spin

i have no idea it's it's a cordless

hard drive one is it like the

two and a half inch drive three and a

half inch full size desktop

enclosure no no it's an external drive

yeah but it's

it's wireless yeah so it sits on a desk

like this and it's battery powered right

but is there any external moving parts

no but it's a mechanical drive like it's

got

platters because when you use it's not

yet

yeah not solid state but that's that's

exactly what i thought and

how could it happen there's not enough

the mechanism inside a hard drive it's

never going to spin the enclosure

no the hell no see and it just

and here's what i mean can i borrow this

for a second yeah

watch as i spin this hard this is a

battery right

so watch as i spin this battery

the initial momentum the initial

momentum of this

imagine that but for like 30 seconds

like that and i was tempted to just stop

it with my hand

but for some reason

i just my lizard brain i just

yelled out with your hand would be a bad

idea

i i just i actually just yelled at it to

the point where

i i'm surprised carolyn didn't wake up

that i

and how quickly he said stop i just went

[Music]

got a couple more friends stories i'd

like to tell you but first

the way i grew up we didn't believe in

ghosts but i need those kind of stories

that we'd hear

we would attribute to demons

so just to satisfy that part of your

curiosity if you have any here's

a catholic theologian that i talked to

about exorcism

he asked that i would disguise his voice

and we talked to them on the phone so

the audio's not great sorry about that

but

here's some interesting testimony

of a catholic theologian who has

talked firsthand with a lot of these

priests who do exorcisms including one

quite famous one in the catholic world

we have uh what could be called a

2 000 year old institutional tradition

about

you know exorcism and that kind of thing

and we don't do it

as spontaneously perhaps

as the pentecostal world so the catholic

church from what i've heard i mean

there's like a full-on

exorcism i don't know what you call it

division

there's actually a great shortage of

them

because maybe around the 1960s

or so everyone wanted to get rid of this

like some weird hangover from

ancient or medieval times but now

there's such a need for exorcist

that i believe italy itself

now has 250 and they believe that

they're

shorthanded by the us

uh dioceses in the united states

have more than quadrupled their

exorcisms just in the last 10 years or

so

they are only done by permission of a

bishop

and they're kept quiet and usually the

notorious cases that get out

are known only by pseudonyms i mean to

protect

other people so i guess the great

paradoxes when we entered the era of

secularization

you thought you'd be done with all this

stuff

and who cares about putting curses and

spells on people

or people being obsessed about the

demonic

but actually the opposite has happened

during our era

of secularization more and more

instances of this are happening

you know in a way even the catholic

church which has one of the most

ancient traditions

about dealing with this stuff is kind of

taken by surprise

since the 60s but there are some

categories there is no science there's a

tradition of discernment

about it and in the catholic tradition

it would involve let's say four levels

what's called infestation

which is basically things are moving

around

in a place like a house or

someplace in ways that are just

inexplicable

but then there's the category called

vexation which is things happen to a

person's body

you know like uh in very strange cases

like handwriting begins to appear on the

body and i'm not talking about tattoos

uh then at a higher levels what's called

obsession which is something more of the

mind

in which the person's mind is

obsessed with apparently

paranormal events

but the real mccoy is called possession

which is referred to as we know many

times in the new testament

where the the person's soul

is somehow taken over by

another power and so exorcism

without qualification is when there's

possession

and uh exorcists will say

that maybe one in a thousand or two

thousand cases

turned out to be the real mccord

and in those kind of cases which require

very careful discernment they're almost

always

first taken to doctors into

psychiatrists

right because there can be all kinds of

physical reasons for this kind of thing

but only in those cases in which none of

that

what could be called ordinary science

makes sense of it

and in cases where

the manifestations of this are

especially clear when the person is put

in the vicinity of a sacred place

and in those cases the bishop has to

give permission

for an exorcism and the most famous in

the history of the united states

is the exorcism in st louis missouri

uh 1949-1950

and by the way there's a very good book

written about it

which is uh called possessed

by thomas allen he got a hold of some of

the diaries

of the jesuits who were involved in the

exorcism

and the basic story is this it was a

teenage boy

in suburban dc um maybe the excerpt of

dc out in maryland

lutheran family who began

manifesting all of these infestations

vexations obsessions and possession

with the long and short of it is he was

taken to

catholic priest in maryland and then

apparently to the hospital at georgetown

university which is a jesuit school

so we're talking about 1949

and they could do nothing for him

and the manifestations were

extremely bizarre paranormal phenomenon

and there appeared on the young man's

body

apparently spontaneously the word

lewis

the family had relatives in saint louis

and they took it as a message and took

the kid to st

louis missouri

i i knew that exorcist

uh his name was father belder i'm sorry

to interrupt you but what what when you

say the

manifestations became too severe what

does that look like what it looks like

is the young man speaking foreign

languages

exerting almost supernatural strength

and breaking the bonds that he was

attached in

it involved things flying around the

room

and during the rite of exorcism itself

uh responses from the voices within him

that identified themselves as

as legion as demonic and father balder

who is the chief exorcist who at that

time would have been

a middle-aged man had had

no experience doing this before and nor

did

any of his helpers i mean they were

playing it

by year and it took

several weeks they performed the rite of

exorcism

every day some of them were

badly injured in doing this bodily

injured

and i am told that the chief

exorcist was never the same after this

event

like he was worn out for the rest of his

life what he had gone through

with this but apparently it was

successful

and uh the young man

never remembered the thing went off

was very happily married and it was a

famous case and there were

several witnesses of course no one can

be sure

because there's not a scientific test

for this

and we can't go back and

look at that young man as he was in 1949

in the symptoms as those jesuit priests

had to interpret them

as they were doing the exorcism

but i do know this that father balder

claimed to the end of his life that it

was the real thing

oh well first of all are there any

documented cases of of

unexplainable um phenomenon

in this regard that couldn't be

explained by a psychologist as

you know a mental disorder or

mental illness or have there been any

actual

recorded instances of some of these more

out there

phenomenon like things flying around the

room and

yes you can even find some videotapes

online

but i would i would take them with a

grain of salt but not dismiss them all

together

but as to your your main question

i know of no case

on the basis of any evidence that's

somewhat reliable that is filtered out

that i mean that has come out that it

couldn't

be explained on some other basis but

here is where you have to deal with a

tradition the catholic tradition

in which it always defaults to other

explanations and people

are taking to doctors like the case of

this young man back in the late 1940s

was apparently taken to hospitals

in both d.c and sanctuaries

much of modern medical science even

psychological science

wants to reduce everything

to physical evidence

but you know there's a lot of physicians

in psychiatrists and others who know

that there's

more than just physical evidence for

things

so no there is no

knock-down explanation

against medical science

but we have to deal with the judgment

including doctors who are on the spot

who says

we cannot see what the medical reason

for this is

so what was the my dad told me a story

about somebody like being on a ceiling

or something like that

yes there have been reports about

walking upside down on ceilings

yes uh and

knowing things that would be impossible

to love

like being

a 12 year old being able to speak

in the most perfect citronian latin

and these kinds of phenomena

are not allowed you know that's

something that if it was documented that

would be

the sort of knock-down thing that you

were talking about but nothing's been

documented like that uh

if it's been documented no one's gonna

no one's gonna show you all of those

documents

uh because the catholic church in any

case

is very discreet about this but you're

dealing

with second hand secondhand

all right i'm gonna give you one more

i've got like several stories that

are entertaining and interesting and

intriguing

but it's just too many stories for the

time

we have so this one though this next one

is one of my favorites so buckle up this

is my buddy rob

[Music]

i tell you what what happened is in the

sense it's about

it's about belief because i don't know

what happened

you don't know what happened no one

really knows yet what happened no matter

how many

bad tv shows on the discovery channel we

make the fact is

i know i had lost a few people

my dad included and i think it's pretty

common when

when my dad died i was 23

and there's a direct correlation between

dad and abba there's this

it was the first time that you know god

is dead

really happened to me for those of you

that have experienced death you know

michael

it's a it's a there's no postcard

there's no like yep

died it's for real it's over like it's

so

sudden and silent and

so i moved to nashville

before it was cool i moved into this old

mansion i guess it used to be equestrian

house a family lived there and they

raised horses or something

it was also built on uh

a hillside where a civil war battle had

been fought

and apparently it had also been some

sort of native american burial

site and besides that i also think

stephen king

wrote six books no i'm just kidding but

uh it was it was like

jam-packed two years of witnessed by

many people

what is going on in my house

[Music]

i what happened was i went from

believing in i went from believing in

zero afterlife there's nothing

we are here and then we're gone

to something altogether different and

i'm not sure what

[Music]

the example that got strange was when it

was the first

visual i was walking in through

the house and was to take a left in the

hallway to go to my

bedroom but to the right down the

hallway is the bathroom

the slam door bathroom and i looked and

there was a man

dressed in like i'm guessing like like a

uniform maybe

i'm projecting it was civil war but

there was some sort of uniform

and he had that abraham lincoln beard

you know the

the civil war slash echo park barista

[Laughter]

and um no mustache thing and he

was standing at the sink looking in the

mirror but had turned to look at me and

as soon as he turned to look at me

he was just not there now at this point

i'm thinking to myself because

logic is what you go to how why is this

happening

and the correct answer of course was

i've done too many drugs

and drunk too much alcohol

um that would make total sense but i

hadn't really done that

much of either yet and so

you just start letting things go because

it's crazy

when you say you hadn't done either yet

do you mean that day or like in your

life

in my life not that day i'm pretty sure

i was stone cold sober

yeah none of these things happened

wildly under the influence

um i'm in my 20s and i'm a musician so

you eat your cheerios with warm beer but

the fact is like

i s there was not a lot of like and the

next story happened when i was on acid

you know

none of it is like that it's it's it's

very

pedestrian it just happened on a tuesday

type stuff

it started to get personal is what the

next

change that happened in this same

apartment

and i'm trying to give you a visual it

was a mansion that they

created apartments out of so it's if

from the sky an aerial view it would be

a u-shape

so the main mansion is at the bottom of

the u facing out into the

large courtyard and then there were two

l's or arms

um and i lived on the far side of

the one on the left if you're still

looking down

one night for no reason i slept on the

couch

i don't know why i slept on the couch i

never sleep on the couch but anyway i

woke up in the middle of the night

or early morning it was about five am i

then went to the bathroom

i don't know why because i didn't have

to go to the bathroom i just walked

there

and stood kind of exactly like that

civil war

apparition was standing just looking

into the mirror wondering why i'm awake

and then the little mirror in front of

me in the bathroom shook

and the whole house i realized had just

been hit by something

or there was an earthquake i didn't

really understand nashville maybe it's

an earthquake

i leave the bathroom and the hallway

door was now closed

which is like one of those doors that

it's always open you never close the

hallway door but

it was closed and i thought that was

strange

and i opened the door and it's pitch

black it's five o'clock in the morning

when i open the door to the living room

and there's this sound that i can't put

my finger on

because it's a sound that shouldn't be

in your living room and when lightning

struck i realized what the sound was

it was rain in the living room

because i saw the lightning above me

because the roof was gone

because a tree about seven or eight feet

wide

had fallen through the roof and landed

on the couch obviously

smashing my guitar which is

heartbreaking

my logical brain said wow that's

strange what are the chances that i

would

wake up and go to the bathroom the tree

would fall away

i had to move because my apartment was

trashed

but i didn't leave the complex because

the main mansion house was available

no one was living there i think this was

because whoever purchased this

property realized it was a gold mine on

this hill in nashville

so they and now there are in fact some

high-rise

cheesy condos or something there

as anyone would know about development

you buy this property and then it takes

years to get

zoning and funding and blah blah so i

basically was squatting there for the

next year

or so i stormed in the office it was

like a tree went through my roof

i'm now living in the other one i'm

paying the same amount of rent which i

think was six hundred dollars for two

bedroom and now it was a

three bedroom two bath

large kitchen outdoor thing backyard

like isn't it insane

no one lived there again i had this

entire mansion to myself

and whoever was living there which

you know when you're a musician in your

20s it's like pick a drum or any drummer

so that's when it started to get really

weird

i think what it seemed

like was they or whatever

realized that i was first of all aware

of it

and started to become in my ignorance

talked to it i lived in this uh i

chose the back room it was this library

it was like the whole the walls were

like

mahogany or something it was just

beautiful

like 120 years old and it had these

french doors i went to the backyard and

it was incredible so i just threw a

mattress on the ground back there and

started to build my beer can pyramid

there

began footsteps

and i say they there began footsteps

because it happened um

often enough that i would ignore it

usually you would think oh wow there's

footsteps walking through your house and

your bedroom you freak out

but it happened i mean to be specific

once a week and at the same time this uh

singing this the singing i should say

began

okay this okay i'm starting to get

freaked out now

uh the singing is so

strange and hard to explain because it

was like

um i guess appalachian music

it was kind of like that kind of creepy

like

maybe there's like a download of jews

harper or something and a banjo and a

jug like

there's no instruments the most awkward

instrument name to say

the thing yeah jews harp uh

is that what it's called though i think

i think it's called there's there's

another one you can call it a mouth harp

mouth heart they probably down there for

the yeah they probably called it a jew's

heart because

oh yeah yeah because jesus was not a jew

in nashville so anyway um

uh there was no mouth there was no jug

it was just the singing

and what made the singing weirder than

the fact that it was appalachian music

that no one was in fact singing

it's that it was how i describe it is

interdimensional um

as someone that had recorded lots and

lots of music and moved mics around lots

of places

you could point in the general direction

it was but it wasn't there

in other words it would often be right

outside the french

doors and i would open the french doors

and it wasn't there

though it would keep singing but it

would maybe then be

20 feet to the right okay

so this wasn't coming from outside no

there's no neighbors this was a huge 10

acre

plot of land and again everyone else had

left like literally i think i was the

only

squatter and my roommates and none of my

roommates were up

or singing appalachian music this

started happening enough that i would

ignore it also

things began to move uh tvs

would turn on and off there was a large

tv that someone had

let me borrow or was moving and they put

it in my house or i don't remember why

but

it was a huge tv and i think this is

long before flat screen so it was like

one of these like takes up real estate

in the corner of the room

tvs but it didn't have a remote control

he had lost the remote control

i'm reading a book the tv is off and

it just turns on and i've of course

logically like oh i must be sitting on

the remote control and i

looked under my butt and there was no

remote control because there was no

remote control

this happened another four or five times

in this window and what i think i don't

know what was going on

of course logically it was probably some

power surge even though no other lights

flickered and nothing else turned on or

off it must have just been that outlet

however

it was also in the corner of the room

where this window was where

where i and a number of other people saw

a seven-year-old girl

peering through the window no

a number of times as if she was standing

in the bushes and looking in the window

i saw her once uh

other people saw her a number of times

we all described her to each other

the same she had salty sandy blonde hair

wearing like a nightgown perhaps

when you see her was it like you're just

seeing a person or was she

more apparitiony yeah that's like that's

a good question the one i would ask

and it's neither

okay look at me right now okay now close

your eyes

and turn your head to the right

it's the second you open your eyes think

of me did you see me

in your memory it's like

they're absolutely there

and the second your brain says oh my god

what the

they're gone so there's something in

between the

realization of the the light going from

there to your

eye to your through your optic nerve to

your brain and your brain going is there

something there that shouldn't be there

and then it's gone

but it's not i've never seen other

things i don't you know what i'm saying

so it's hard i don't i don't know

i don't know what it is i i could

honestly go on for

another 30 or 40 minutes explaining

these little things

a few that i like to get to yeah because

it did turn this corner

when we got a letter saying the wrecking

ball is coming

and you're leaving and we're tearing

down this house

they or whatever got upset

and stuff started going really

aggressive

basically there was this girl i ended up

dating her she was dating someone else

she was trying to move to nashville from

another city and

i kind of let her sleep at my house and

i was gonna

we were dancing around each other but i

i was trying to be as ethical as

possible

and let her stay in my room while i

stayed elsewhere

and like anyone because it's an open

door in the in in nashville

you know it's a transient city and

musicians and people are always crashing

on the couch or whatever

and there was sort of a thing we would

tell people as they were coming through

like

you know the doors always open we don't

lock it you're welcome to anything in

the fridge

you know the neighbors are friendly you

can park anywhere there's ghosts don't

worry about them you can smoke inside

uh you know whatever and um

everyone would always be like oh it's

haunted and i'll be like i know ha ha

anyway bye

and um and so this girl who

um was i won't say dishonest but she was

imaginative

the next morning when i got there to

check on her

after she had slept there the night had

uh

there was a i mean as iwilco said the

ashtray says you've been up all night

like there was this pile

of cigarette butts and her face was

ashen and she was like

didn't sleep and i said what's up and

she's like

they're you know they're ghosts whatever

i was like well she's a liar like

i don't believe her you know um well you

didn't believe in the ghost at this

point

yeah no i still didn't believe in ghosts

at this point um

i was like well this is crazy she's just

trying to like give it a date or

something

so what did you explain all the things

that you the girl that you'd see in the

guy

in the you don't because you don't

because you don't want to sound like a

crazy person you don't want to like

sit down and be on someone's podcast

telling them how insane you are like

that's the last thing you want to

do so it's and then so when she tells

you back

exactly what you would have told her

you're like you're a crazy person

and i think i'm not gonna date you um

and i knew she was lying when she said

yeah they started whistling along to

joni mitchell and i was like well that's

total

bullshit like that doesn't happen you're

making this

up trying to impress me trying to one-up

me in my own haunted house this is silly

um and about let's call it a month later

three weeks later i'm in my

library room and

i don't know if you have this thing as a

musician but you rarely like listen to

music at home sometimes because it's

always playing and where you need to

break from it or whatever so

i had one of these top of the line

cutting edge

sony five disc changer carousels

it was whoa and um i

opened it to see what was in there and

joey mitchell blue is in there now

top ten maybe top five i've heard the

record

a billion and a half times i could

hum you any of those tunes right now and

be in the right key you understand i

know this thing

i push play it gets to california

and i'm i think i'm at my desk i'm

making notes i'm definitely smoking a

cigarette i'm

definitely drinking a beer the speakers

are in the

what's called the south west corner of

the room

and in the south east corner of the room

where the doors are

when california chorus comes around

which is california

i'm coming home right

uh all the music nerds are running like

is that the right key

this guy's a hack

but anyway um in the other corner of the

room i hear

which is weird because there's no

whistling on that track

and it's in five point i mean it's like

what it's over there these speakers over

there

yeah and i'm thinking well logically

it's there's an

acoustic thing in this square room and

there's the built-in

must that's what that's all it is i'm

hearing it overtone yeah

so the next chorus rolls around

whoa okay weird i'm gonna start this

song over and i'm gonna stand on my

chair

to change whatever the overtone what

might be in

sure shit there's whistling going on in

my bedroom to this song

so i call her the girl

and i'm like hey she's okay i said

the whistling ghost what song where

there was like she goes

california i was like okay goodbye and i

hung up the phone

i was i don't i would at this point what

do you think

what do you think because your your own

doubts of like okay well this is crazy

and i didn't see a girl and i didn't see

a civil war guy and it was just a

squirrel you dick

and the tree fell and you were lucky not

to be on the like it's all

logical until you call a girl in boston

and say what song were they whistling

and they say california

and you know sure as shit there's no one

whistling in your bedroom

in the corner where there is nothing

and i think it's also weird because at

this time i was getting serious about

maybe

moving to california or at least

thinking about it a few other

you know definitely everyone else had

already had their ghost stories and i

don't believe in these they're all lying

there's no such

thing as ghosts right everyone's making

this shit up and

i'm the only one that saw these things

and i'm a lunatic it's not true

so more doors opening and closing more

kitchen pantries opening and closing um

the humming relentless people walking

across my room

to this point where i'm like stop i need

like one night i clearly remember

there's someone walking they'd walk

from like the far end kitchen all the

way across the living room and

into the french doors that open into my

library bedroom

and across my bedroom stands before my

bed and

that sounds so scary but it's what would

happen and um

they're doing this and i'm like i sat up

in bed i had some early one i was like

not tonight

seriously go in the other room i have to

sleep

and and they did you'd hear the footstep

fuck away

they walked away

or i'm crazy right so

this all gets weird and this is where

like everyone's everyone's like okay

this is entertaining

and then it's kind of turned the corner

of like okay i don't really like this

anymore and now it gets to the point of

and i'll try to close this down and we

can talk philosophically about it but

the fact is now it gets

weird because i'm in the mansion part of

this house and in the foyer in the

entry there's my apartment off one side

and on the other side there's another

two bedroom apartment

virtually mirror image but it's not as

big or nice

and my best friend in the world matt

and he rest in peace lived across the

hall and this girl

jen i believe and i think this

dude named chris who was friends with

jen i don't know like two or three

whoever was squatting over there was

this girl jen and

someone called me i don't know who and

said hey i've got a friend they just got

a job in nashville they know no one

there

they're literally like on the road and

they need a place to stay and i heard

you have like extra bedrooms in this

haunted mansion it's like yeah totally

you know it's no problem have him come

on we've got a bed

i don't know this guy's name he shows up

and i was like hey welcome

we don't lock the doors anything in the

fridge is welcome to be happy that if

you bought beer

um the place is haunted you can park

anywhere you want to

uh the sunset's really nice later that

night his first night he knows no one in

town he doesn't

have anywhere to go he's got a jeep full

of his stuff

he's moved to stuff into the bedroom

he's gonna stay there for two weeks

i'm reading a book in the same place

where the tv turns on and off

and i see him in the front

yard it's dark out he's looking around

and i'm like what is that dude doing i

was like

oh he's looking for the singing he can't

find the singing because i've done this

a hundred times

running around the house trying to find

the singing that simply isn't there hey

hey it's so creepy

and um and then i hear him kind of go

through the foyer and the entry and goes

out the back

yard and he's looking for the singing

it's not there

a few seconds later again reading my

book

i look up and he is running like dead

sprint

so much so to his car and so much so

that he like passed

he like couldn't slow himself fast

enough gets in his jeep slams the door

and is

gone

i don't know i don't know why isn't i

hurried i don't know who cares i'm

reading my book

and then there's a knock on my door i

get up and it's this girl

jen from across the hall

whose face is ashen white

and she doesn't say anything she just

kind of come here with her finger

and i walk across the hall into her

apartment

and into where this extra bedroom was

and she won't touch the door she just

like looks at the door

hasn't said a word to me she doesn't

know what to say and i opened the door

and all of this dude's stuff

was in a pile in the middle of the room

i don't i that's where i can't explain

it that's where like my wife's like okay

i love you and i trust you but i don't

believe you

and i understand all the stuff meaning

the

the books he brought and the box of

clothes and his suitcase

and uh his deodorant

was not spread around the room like it

would have been it was

somehow while he was outside looking for

the singing

made into a tower in the center

of the bedroom like how much when you

say a tower how tall was this tower

six feet

five feet get out right like at this

point

i still don't believe in ghosts

and when we're dead we just die so but

as i

what wait so how how do we know that he

didn't do it that he didn't stack his oh

he never came back

and the next day two guys that he had

just

met mind you from this new job from when

he left how do you

how do we know that the stuff that he

didn't stack it and then go outside

because because of what happened the

next day there was a knock on my door

hey i'm

todd and joe hi todd and joe we're here

from

what's his names he won't come back in

the house

he wants us to go get his stuff

something about

you're right the place is haunted

i mean i don't know i never talked to

the dude again he never showed his face

at our place

again and when i say i if i know that he

didn't stack his stuff

i mean he moved to nashville to be an

accountant or something okay some

business

something i don't know what they do

during the day in pleated pants and he

didn't stack this shit do you understand

yeah he didn't stack it

now okay logic would tell you no dude

stacked it

and you know i don't know why you know

because he's a crazy person and he

likes stacking things and his ocd got to

him because of the stress of the move

and he had to leave and go to a

you know ramada

[Laughter]

because he's that mentally ill probably

what happened i understand that

however dude never came back

since his two work buddies to get his

stuff

so anyway after this now my life is one

where i

every now and then someone says ghosts

i'm like oh i've got ghost stories and

now i collect other people's ghost

stories because they want to tell me

theirs

yeah so i was telling my publisher this

and she said oh i've got this

you know when i lived with i have to say

i can't tell the story that with

with the dixie chicks um in this house

up on whatever street they had these

like weird

uh their kitchen doors opening and

closing like you see in all the movies i

was like yeah that actually happened

at my kitchen and blah blah and she says

they found this

woman this old woman from antioch or

some

town that speaks to spirits or whatever

and she came over to their house

and they had a funny attitude about it

they're like let's have some fun with

this they ordered pizza and had wine and

the lady was there and she was talking

to them and

the woman was like okay there's a

there's a man here and he thinks you're

all so funny you're so funny he just

says ah just you keep me laughing all

the time and

kept saying something about christmas

and christmas and it was so funny and

they didn't know what he was talking

about and they realized oh

it was june or july that they were

having this seance experience

and about a month prior they were making

jokes because their christmas

decorations were still up and they were

putting them away

and they thought this was so funny like

oh that's weird that's creepy you know

bubba

and then she said oh your grandmother's

here and at this you know it gets

personal and that's when you're like hey

that's not cool you know what i'm saying

you can lie to me about some man joking

about christmas ornaments

you can't lie to me about my grandmother

crazy old lady from antioch

and she says she's here and she wants

you to know she loves you and

everything's okay

and but she desperately wants you to

know

and she's like cracking her brain like

what is it that she wants you to know

and

two of the girls in the band were

sisters

and she said okay you were supposed to

get

the locket and you were supposed to get

the jewelry box

and they both just burst into tears

bawling

because their grandmother had left in

these two things but it was messed it

was mixed up

and i was like oh my god i gotta call

this lady that's incredible like i've

got chills right now i'm thinking about

it that's like

what we're getting to which is what is

the afterlife and is there uh

consciousness this is fascinating i've

got to call this old lady so i'm in my

little

office at this little publishing company

where i have this brand new

blue and white mac tower i mean i'm

happening

i get this lady's number and i call and

i'm like you know hi

is i don't know what her name is you

know janet there's janet there and it's

like hold on

janet janet found you know

and uh janet picks up the phone hello

i was like hi janet i got your uh my

name's rob i got your name from

so-and-so sisters and um i wanted to

talk to you about shoes hold on

i was like okay she goes

okay please tell me she goes her hurry

oh shit

that would have been awesome i was like

wait do you live on 21st in hillsborough

that's where i rehearse i'd be like

this is great this is awesome i'm going

to bring my jug over tonight

my jews harp

so anyway she just cuts me off i'm

trying to explain so i live in nashville

on this hill and this whole line she

goes wait hold on

i was like okay they're all around you

right now and i was like what

you know like they who you know and our

guys

you know and uh and it just freaked me

out like what do you mean

and so he here's this

old woman in 1999 who

doesn't live in a mansion lives in

antioch

who is telling me

that they are all around me before i've

even explained to her what's going on

and i was like okay and she goes

you've been speaking to them haven't you

and i was like yeah she goes okay you

from this day forward never ever ever

acknowledge them again you've opened

pandora's box and that is dangerous and

i was like

looking at your face that's exactly what

i was looking for like joe on the ground

like this is not good this is not good

i there's no way to get out of there

they're here

and i'm not even at home you understand

they followed me to work

this is not cool old lady on the phone

so i was like well look i'd love for you

to come over to the place

and talk to them and

figure out what's going on and she was

like right i usually charge a hundred

dollars

um but yeah no thanks

i've got i'm good for it you know cash

is fine she's like no

no i think you need to leave now yeah i

think you never need to speak to them

again and i think you need to leave

now

and i and i did i did i packed up

real quick and i i think i moved onto a

girlfriend's

into her house or something for a while

and yeah but i didn't i

that was it i was i was good with old

lady from antioch telling me she

does not want my money she is not coming

over don't talk to them again and move

whoa

so yeah but ghosts aren't real

this is all on my mind and i just made

it up and it's totally it's just

i probably had too much chili any

questions oh

wow what's interesting though is this

what we're talking about here is what we

never talk about here

wars of religion the wars

of belief and dog yeah

all we're really talking about

ultimately beyond moral exchange behind

moral code beyond

ethical law beyond you can't eat shrimp

or lay down with a man or will kill you

beyond your sins are forgiven

what we're talking about is what

happens when you die that's it

and what and what are we yeah and what

it is and therefore what's going on yeah

but i can't distill it down past that

we're all trying to argue and don't know

the answer to

what happens when we die to our

[Music]

consciousness

you know to me the question is not does

god exist or doesn't god exist

to me the question is does the thing

that made the universe and invented

consciousness

is it conscious of itself or not is it

beyond consciousness

is it conscious of itself if it's

conscious of itself that's what i'm

going to call god

if it isn't conscious of itself and this

is a freakish thing

i find that harder to believe that the

thing that made the universe

isn't conscious of itself but i am

and i had to look for my keys for a long

time this morning and i was holding them

right so like that takes a real

special arrogance which gets me back to

the from the this experience in

nashville on

i can't shake that that's the question

we're all trying to figure out what

happens when we die and i don't i don't

i don't know

is this some holographic stamp of trauma

like these people died

horribly in the by the way i found out

there was a fire on the horse farm in

this mansion

creepy right so native american burial

grounds civil war battle and a fire that

perhaps killed this family a hundred

years prior to me living there

is that it did their whatever spirits

turn into

other energy that you know pushes up

daisies literally or

did their consciousness go on to

something else and or

did one of these two things happen and

yet something of their essence their

personality

their footprint on the world was stamped

in this

geographic location on some sort of

feedback loop

and they're trying to work something out

dramatically whether or not they the

person that existed 100 years ago

knows that they're there or not do you

know what i'm saying some holographic

stamp that is called what i think is

fascinating and i mean

what that's what we do as humans is we

you know we're always looking for

meaning

and we tend to personify

with ourselves being the center of what

we mean by

something when we say like conscious we

assume that means

like me thinks like me so something

conscious of itself must feel sort of

like i do or

their thoughts must be sort of like mine

all these stories

that we've been collecting for this and

collecting i've mostly just been talking

to friends because you're right

everybody's got these stories it's crazy

people that like don't even believe it

but still have crazy stories

right and so what do you do with all of

these stories because they don't

fit any of the models that i've ever

heard

there's always outlier stories you try

to put a model of reality together

some sort of coherent picture of the

universe in reality

and then you're like well what about

this there's always some

clue missing or some little p's yeah

and i think as humans we do tend to

personify is there a god meaning

yeah again you're thinking is there like

a bigger better me

out there and then even with

ghosts or you know but then i talked to

a

a catholic theologian about some stories

that he had and for him it's all it goes

back to like demons and these that

i'm sure he would hear that story and be

like sure those are demonic whatever

never mind the catholic what i didn't

really understand is the catholic

existence of saints in the hierarchy of

like

you know praying to people that have

died that are hearing our prayers and

then

passing them down yeah the telephone

game to marry or

i don't really understand that but it's

fascinating and we talk about what

what happens to us after death

that used to be a bigger question for me

and then when you start

questioning what you are in the first

place

and what am i getting at when i'm saying

what what happens to me after death who

do i think that i am

and what do i think consciousness is i

think the myths of

our culture hand us

borrow little alan watts here but the

religious myth is alan watts called it

the ceramic myth

and that's that that we are this sort of

thing that has been created by something

else

um this creator this and and we have

this consciousness

and oh boy what happens when the pot

breaks i hope it gets put back together

or whatever

right and then there's like a take on

that myth

that is secularization and it's still

like the ceramic

dead pot myth

where you like we're this thing you just

get rid of the creator

it just happened it just accidentally

is this dead thing that we're lucky that

enough monkeys typed out enough

typewriters for us to have this split

second have a split second of awareness

but

then it goes away there's a different

way of looking at all this

which is that it's just it just

is this moment is this new

generative creative magical

beautiful unexplainable phenomenon

that is god being expressed but that i

don't know for me when i think about

like

natural laws or consciousness or

anything we we put these constructs

around it

and they become these patterns where you

expect like

you know a scale and you keep hearing

[Music]

and you keep hearing it it's like oh

that's a law

and then occasionally it goes but

like something just like slips in there

something mixolydian asshole changes

everything you know are you like what

yeah

well it's just it's just happening like

who's to say that that shouldn't have

happened

the laws and the ways that we think the

universe ought to behave and all

we that fizzles down to beliefs and

dogmas and systems and

science and our view of everything we we

try to put it into these

neat rows and lines because it's simpler

that way to control

for us as human beings we've learned to

do things like that because we can plant

crops better in a line

you know like the way we order the world

it helps us survive and make babies

to like simplify abstract and

put into thought and language so that we

can control

pattern pattern yeah uh and there's

certainly pattern

happening in the world or at least we

perceive it

but to assume that that pattern is

limited by your own thought that you're

seeing

just the first probably the smallest

sliver of the surface level of patterns

yeah first of all right

exactly yeah you know pre-schizophrenia

you're not seeing much at all

and second that meaning has meaning

beyond what you've basically ejected

yeah

so yeah i mean you could come out you're

a writer i mean you could come up with

if you sat there and like let's come up

with 10 short stories of

explaining how that could have been

sure you know you could like that's

what's really exciting you know

the just yesterday in the trades it was

announced that my

show um i created a television show

called near beth experience and it's

about

a cynical comedian like a imagine like a

sarah silverman or george carlin who's

like

clearly religion's silly and

you know politics sicilian and we're

humans trying to make

shit out of shit and and being funny

about it

and then poor thing dies and goes to

heaven and sees

something that has a lot of knowledge

and and meaning and says

you have to go back like so so

many people report

many more numbers than we can understand

and we can get into that a whole nother

podcast but the fact is

she comes back and her faith

is all of a sudden rocked

you know her her organized agnosticism

atheism whatever is rocked and now she

knows there's something

or does she yeah because as time goes by

was it just my brain was it just the

chemicals firing was it just you know

like any good kundalini experience over

time you're like

maybe that wasn't a ghost in my living

room my personal favorite

explanation for all of it came from guy

reed

who explained to me how all of this is

ed

sheeran's wet dream you know ed sheeran

just his mind's got little quirks here

and there

that it very well could be i mean he's

good he's very good

he rhymes and he counts to four he's

good

he's good but would you be terribly

surprised to see him

at a coffee shop in l.a not him now like

sure

a guy as good as him jed sheeran jed

sheeran

and you walk in be like wow this guy's

really good

now picture can you imagine walking in

and seeing beyonce

in a coffee shop performing no you said

no you see

me she should be arrested let's be

honest she'd be around so

how is ed sheeran the biggest artist is

he

he's he's big he's one of the biggest

artists

i don't know he's like his spotify

accounts were like number one it's

pretty weird because

you go to the people's center and you

see thousands people and it's just him

with his acoustic guitar and it's as if

he's the first white dude to find out

how to

sing songs on a guitar and these girls

are freaking out about it like oh my god

these guys songs and they're about love

because it's his dream it's his you

proved it

you've proven wow that's amazing

all right thank you rob thank you i hope

we answered all the questions

they're all answered it's all solved

done

okay so i finally just played the

episode for

science mike and

here's what we're gonna do we're going

to put his recorded response

we stopped after every story and let him

science it up

and we're gonna put that response on

patreon

and don't worry you can look at it if

you're not a patron you can still go

there and we'll put it

available for free but to put

his answers on this episode for the

holiday fun cheerful kind of magical

whimsical episode that it is it might be

a little bit of a killjoy to be honest

with you

um but if you feel like you

need to to have that wheel of

science put back on the normal tricycle

of

science art and faith that we operate

with the podcast

mike's got all sorts of ideas that will

that will calm the scientific minds that

might be reeling and angry right now

to hear the bonus content of mike's

debunking

of paranormal stories just go to the

liturgists.com and you can click the

donate button

but don't worry you don't have to donate

to listen to this one because

it'll be available for free for anybody

that wants to listen

though if you do choose to become a

patron and

get access to our meditations and our

other podcasts that we do

called the liturgist conversations we

would certainly be happy

to welcome you into the

for fold rest of you that just enjoyed

the whimsical

halloween special episode and you don't

need science mike to debunk anything for

you

today then we'll just call it a day

this is actually the first episode that

science mike didn't make an appearance

on

and he was very happy about that because

he felt

like our feet has always been slightly

off balance because he did the

interstellar episode without me

and he always wanted there to be one

liturgist podcast without him

so now it's even and

the scales have been balanced as a

result

we have an episode that is off balance

scientifically but you know

i enjoyed it i enjoyed hearing those

stories

letting my imagination run wild i hope

you did too

let us know what your thoughts on this

episode are

on facebook the liturgists twitter

liturgists

what instagram liturgists.com

podcast all the places thanks to greg

nordine for the editing help corey pagan

madison chandler

for administration thanks to matt ososki

for helping me put together a lot of the

music on this episode

thanks to all the friends guests who are

willing to

share their stories special thanks to

the patrons

for making this and everything we do

possible by the way it was so

wonderful seeing all of you at the

gatherings that we did this year

we just did our last one in seattle and

goodness

magical being with all of you uh ended

it with a

epic dance party um okay

we'll be back with some more episodes

soon so much love to all of you thanks

for listening everybody

[Music]

you