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Haunted and Waiting, Unveiling the Mysteries: Ghosts and Faiths Explored · Eye Opener Society

0:02
Speaker0: Hello, everybody, and this is Anne Lund.
0:06
Speaker0: First of all, I want to thank Gary, of course, for having me host another podcast
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Speaker0: on his venue, the Eye Opener Society, which is available both on Podbeam and YouTube.
0:17
Speaker0: I recommend downloading the Podbeam app and listening to his shows while driving.
0:22
Speaker0: They're great, and his podcast has many guests that invest a ton of metaphysical subjects.
0:28
Speaker0: Personally, I listen to it on my way to work, and the app is just super easy to use.
0:32
Speaker0: So if you want to listen to different perspectives, just follow him.
0:37
Speaker0: But let me start. If you don't know me, my name is Anne Lund,
0:41
Speaker0: and I'm a writer by heart.
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Speaker0: I write a blog called hauntedandwaiting.blog, where I share true ghost stories
0:47
Speaker0: as well as chapters of my free novel called My Bronx Haunting,
0:52
Speaker0: which is about the haunted house I grew up in New York City in the 1980s.
0:56
Speaker0: You can also find me on my Facebook group, Haunted and Waiting,
0:59
Speaker0: as well as here on my podcast, also called Haunted and Waiting,
1:03
Speaker0: or you can go to my Facebook group and just join there and add any stories or
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Speaker0: comments that you would like.
1:11
Speaker0: But for today, let's move on to this topic, which is basically exploring ghosts
1:16
Speaker0: and the afterlife with a mention of different fates. Where do these ideas come from?
1:23
Speaker0: If you've listened to my last podcast, you may have heard about my ghost notebook.
1:28
Speaker0: It's just a marble notebook where I dot down at any true stories I hear from
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Speaker0: friends or family, as well as any odd things that I've had happen to me that have no explanation.
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Speaker0: And in doing so, I soon realized that ghosts or spirits or hauntings seem to
1:44
Speaker0: come from different forms.
1:47
Speaker0: You see, hauntings are as different as a box of crayons.
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Speaker0: There are ghosts of people we once knew, beings that come to tell us that they're okay.
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Speaker0: There are stories of evil ghosts, although rare, they seem to get the most attention
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Speaker0: and are meant for Halloween parties and campfire stories.
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Speaker0: And then there are the odd ones, the lost ghosts, the ones that seem to have
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Speaker0: no idea what they're doing, as if they're walking aimlessly on this planet,
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Speaker0: lost and perpetually confused, unwilling to communicate in any way.
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Speaker0: So I asked myself, why are ghosts and hauntings so different?
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Speaker0: Why do only some of them communicate? Why do some seem lost?
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Speaker0: Why do some want to help and others want to hurt?
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Speaker0: So I decided to look at religions and traditions and learned a lot,
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Speaker0: and I would like to share that.
2:38
Speaker0: So human fascination with the supernatural is as oldest civilization itself,
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Speaker0: with tales and encounters forming a part of nearly every single culture.
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Speaker0: This podcast is going to go into the beliefs surrounding ghosts and spurs from
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Speaker0: very religious perspectives and examining how different faiths interpret and
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Speaker0: explain or even deny the existence of these entities.
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Speaker0: So I'm going to share a few true ghost stories and how I chunk them into faiths.
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Speaker0: If you listened to my previous podcast, you know I keep that notebook and this
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Speaker0: is where I've gotten these stories from.
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Speaker0: But to secure the privacy of the people that have told me the stories or are
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Speaker0: in the stories themselves, I may have changed the names and locations slightly,
3:25
Speaker0: just to protect their privacy.
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Speaker0: Start with story number one. A family member, which I need to say is also a
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Speaker0: non-believer, and actually one of those annoying non-believers who didn't believe
3:37
Speaker0: anything until it happened to him, told me this story.
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Speaker0: His wife, another family member, had passed away after a long illness.
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Speaker0: When she passed, it was actually a comfort to us, only because we knew she wasn't suffering anymore.
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Speaker0: And this particular family member, her husband, was riddled in guilt because of it.
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Speaker0: Because of this sense of being relieved that she wasn't around anymore.
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Speaker0: And it was a terrible feeling.
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Speaker0: A few weeks had gone by after she had passed when he was sitting alone in the yard.
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Speaker0: Now, I need to explain the yard to you. This was a house that she had always wanted to purchase.
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Speaker0: It was her dream house. It was situated on acres of beautiful prairie land.
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Speaker0: And when she was in physical form, she used to love to walk on the property.
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Speaker0: And it was really beautiful.
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Speaker0: And it was a place where she took comfort when she was very much alive.
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Speaker0: Well into the last days of her illness, she still took comfort in her property.
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Speaker0: Well, after she had passed, he was sitting there thinking about her all alone
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Speaker0: when he felt this soft hand on the back of his neck and heard her say his name.
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Speaker0: Sam? And for a moment, he forgot that she had died and instinctually he turned
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Speaker0: around expecting to see her because that was how she often touched him.
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Speaker0: And lo and behold, he was all alarmed.
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Speaker0: He had later told me that this warm feeling came over him, that she had moved
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Speaker0: on and wanted him to be at peace. And that was the message.
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Speaker0: And somehow this entity had conveyed this to him, even though he hadn't seen it.
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Speaker0: He just heard her, felt her.
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Speaker0: So what happened? Many of us have stories like this.
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Speaker0: I know for certain Sunset Child, an author of another podcast here on the Eye
5:35
Speaker0: Opener Society, had told me that her deceased mother had once visited her when
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Speaker0: her daughter was very young in a similar way.
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Speaker0: Now she attributes ghosts to nothing more than imprints of energy from a time
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Speaker0: when they were made, a timeline of sorts that stuck.
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Speaker0: But to be honest, it's as good as an explanation as any other.
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Speaker0: But I think stories like these, stories in which the deceased relatives come
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Speaker0: to say hi and let us know that they're okay, are common in every culture.
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Speaker0: But to be honest, I feel it gets its credulous for Catholicism, and let me explain why.
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Speaker0: Now, I grew up as a Roman Catholic, and the Catholics believe that the dead
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Speaker0: are often in a spiritual state.
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Speaker0: They haven't disappeared, but they are beyond human interaction.
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Speaker0: And Catholics believe that the deceased visit the living, typically to provide
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Speaker0: comfort or convey an important message, such as in the story above.
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Speaker0: But these souls are not seen as ghosts, not scary ghosts in that sense,
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Speaker0: but more like spirits meant to comfort.
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Speaker0: So not in a haunting sense.
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Speaker0: Ironically, the church opposes its practices like seances or Ouija boards,
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Speaker0: as these are viewed as attempts to bypass the divine and to summon spirits artificially.
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Speaker0: Strongly believe that if you are to receive a message, it will come to you.
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Speaker0: There's no need to search for it.
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Speaker0: And to be honest with you, I kind of adhere to that.
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Speaker0: This is why many Catholics pray for their deceased loved ones,
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Speaker0: hoping to assist them on their journey into the other life.
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Speaker0: So let's move on to another story. This one you may know, and it's not my story,
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Speaker0: but it's commonly known.
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Speaker0: The story of Chloe, an African slave who lived in the Myrtles Plantation in Louisiana.
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Speaker0: Now, if you don't know that story, I can bring it to you really quickly.
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Speaker0: It was the ninth birthday of the slave owner's daughter.
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Speaker0: And Chloe was worried that she was somehow going to be banished from the house.
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Speaker0: She was what we would call at that time a house slave.
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Speaker0: So she had the comforts of living within a home rather than out in a field picking
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Speaker0: cotton, which was presumably much worse.
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Speaker0: So, fear that she was somehow going to be pushed out of the home,
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Speaker0: she had concocted this plan that she believed would earn her favor and respect
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Speaker0: from the ruthless slave owners.
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Speaker0: What she did was she crushed some poisonous oleander leaves and she mixed them
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Speaker0: into a birthday cape, intending to poison the wife and the children.
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Speaker0: But her hope was that they wouldn't die, they would just become sick.
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Speaker0: And she would nurse them back to health, and then the slave owner would be so
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Speaker0: happy with her that she would be back in his good favor and remain in the house.
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Speaker0: The sad part about this story was that something went tragically wrong,
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Speaker0: and unfortunately, the mother and both young children ended up dying.
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Speaker0: Fearing that she would be blamed, and rightfully so, Chloe ran to her family
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Speaker0: that was living in the woods at the time in cabins.
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Speaker0: As I said, they were plantation slaves working outdoors.
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Speaker0: And she was seeking for a place to hide, hoping that her family would hide her.
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Speaker0: But sadly, her own family turned their backs on her and handed her back to the
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Speaker0: slave owner, where she was put to death. I believe she was hung.
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Speaker0: But to this day that house the myrtles plantation is said to be haunted by chloe,
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Speaker0: as a price she had to pay for her bad karma and
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Speaker0: if you youtube it you will see there are plenty of pictures of chloe as well
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Speaker0: as handprints of the deceased children on this famous mirror that lays beginning
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Speaker0: of the house which brings me to my next religion which is the buddhists and this idea of karma.
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Speaker0: Buddhist cultures with a deep belief in reincarnation and this cycle of rebirth
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Speaker0: allows for the possibility of ghosts and spirits, but they're often seen as
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Speaker0: souls struggling with negative karma from their past lives,
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Speaker0: such as in poor Chloe's case.
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Speaker0: So if you've done something wrong.
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Speaker0: Chances are you may be stuck on this planet until you win good favor.
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Speaker0: So, in Buddhists, in Buddhism rather, these spirits are called hungry ghosts
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Speaker0: and they're thought to be tormented by this bad karma and by past evil doings.
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Speaker0: This is why the Buddhists will try to appease these spirits and help them achieve
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Speaker0: peace by offering food and prayers and assist them with their transition.
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Speaker0: Interesting, I would say. Let's go on to what I like to call is the loop ghost.
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Speaker0: That's what I call them anyway. And these are really common.
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Speaker0: These are spirits that don't seem very intelligent in that they're not communicating.
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Speaker0: They appear as if they're reliving some tragic experience over and over again.
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Speaker0: And I had an experience such as this. I went to visit Gettysburg a few years
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Speaker0: ago, and I was awestruck by the tragic history of America's bloodiest day of war.
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Speaker0: My husband and I decided to visit Saks Bridge. Now, for those of you that don't
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Speaker0: know it, it's known to be haunted, and apparently three Confederate soldiers
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Speaker0: had been hung at that bridge.
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Speaker0: My husband and I went there at night, and we took a ton of pictures.
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Speaker0: Like I said, I did not try to contact the spirits. I don't believe in doing that.
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Speaker0: But I was hoping to catch an image on my camera.
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Speaker0: Sadly, I did not. And it justifies my feelings that ghosts will appear when
11:28
Speaker0: they choose to and not when you're trying to summon them. So if it's not in
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Speaker0: the cards, you won't see them.
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Speaker0: However, while I was there, I did meet this young couple who had shown me a
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Speaker0: photograph that they had taken the night before at another area in Gettysburg.
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Speaker0: It wasn't much to look at, to be honest. It looked more like just a foggy shadow
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Speaker0: with some trees in the background, no discernible image.
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Speaker0: But the couple assured me that right before they had snapped that picture they
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Speaker0: saw a ghost of a soldier running across a field and towards a schoolyard but
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Speaker0: by the time they had reached for their camera to take the picture the figure had disappeared.
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Speaker0: Now, stories of soldiers in Gettysburg are rampant, and there are tons of footage
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Speaker0: that you could find on that.
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Speaker0: If you're interested, I suggest just do a YouTube search and you'll find them.
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Speaker0: But being curious and the fact that I was in Gettysburg, I decided to look it
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Speaker0: up, and I later learned that this was a common haunting that occurred by a present-day middle school.
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Speaker0: So right there, right where there's a middle school, apparently, was haunted.
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Speaker0: And as the accounts reported, the school, which now lies on the grounds of a
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Speaker0: once-battlefield, often sees apparitions of soldiers running through the hallways,
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Speaker0: through lockers, through classrooms.
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Speaker0: Look it up. Strange to say the least.
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Speaker0: So, I went to the school to explore, but sadly wasn't lucky enough to see what
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Speaker0: they had seen, namely what they described as a young, terrified soldier reliving,
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Speaker0: most likely, his last day on earth.
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Speaker0: This is another common type of haunting or ghost. One that does not communicate,
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Speaker0: but simply seems stuck in some strapped, strategic, sad timeline.
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Speaker0: A lot like the character Dr. Valken Crowe played by Bruce Willis in The Sixth Sense.
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Speaker0: Just don't know they're dead.
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Speaker0: Which brings me to my next religion, which is Hinduism, okay?
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Speaker0: And they actually believe in ghosts.
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Speaker0: The Hindus believe that certain individuals, especially those who die unexpectedly
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Speaker0: or violently, such as our soldier friend in Gettysburg, might become ghosts
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Speaker0: if their souls cannot peacefully transition.
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Speaker0: Hindus partake in rituals after death to ensure that the souls find peace and move on.
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Speaker0: So not like awake, but more as if helping the soul transition.
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Speaker0: Because without these, this soul may linger, potentially becoming a restless
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Speaker0: ghost who haunts places or people that they were attached to.
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Speaker0: And this is why that death ritual is so important.
14:17
Speaker0: Let's move on. Have you ever heard of an evil ghost? One that pulls hair,
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Speaker0: knocks people out of windows, or scratches them on the back?
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Speaker0: Well, it's a place called Malahi Castle, another place called Leap Castle,
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Speaker0: both in Ireland by the way.
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Speaker0: Ireland seems to have its fair share of these.
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Speaker0: And both of these castles have a ghost or an entity that likes to push people
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Speaker0: as they walk through the halls.
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Speaker0: Other than that, there's no communication.
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Speaker0: But these occurrences are rare. And although there's the stuff that nightmares
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Speaker0: are made of and why most people are terrified of ghosts, they are actually very rare.
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Speaker0: But there are tons of stories about these entities. Sometimes the haunting lies
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Speaker0: in an item like a doll or a piece of jewelry that seems to attract bad luck, such as the Anvil doll.
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Speaker0: I'm not sure how I feel about this, but who am I to pass judgment?
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Speaker0: I've never had an experience with a possessed item or evil spirit.
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Speaker0: But let's talk about that, and let's talk about the djinn.
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Speaker0: In Islam, the concept of a traditional ghost does not exist as it does in other faiths.
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Speaker0: The souls of the dead are considered to remain in a state of purgatory,
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Speaker0: which is between life and the afterlife, where they await the day of judgment,
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Speaker0: and that's where they say they stay.
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Speaker0: Islam however does recognize the jinn
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Speaker0: which is a supernatural being with spiritual and
15:54
Speaker0: physical forms jinns are neither inherently
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Speaker0: evil nor good but they are capable
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Speaker0: of interfering with human affairs which has sometimes led them to be mistaken
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Speaker0: for ghosts and what believers are cautioned against attempting to communicate
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Speaker0: with them because unlike the other ghosts which cannot change your environment, a jinn can.
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Speaker0: My advice, play it safe and try not to communicate.
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Speaker0: Just ignore and avoid, sort of like a spam call. If you answer it,
16:29
Speaker0: it just may not stop calling.
16:32
Speaker0: Jehovah's Witness, by the way, believe in a similar thing.
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Speaker0: And so they don't believe in ghosts. Anything that tries to contact you in a
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Speaker0: spiritual form is thought to be demonic.
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Speaker0: And so just avoid it at all costs.
16:48
Speaker0: I've had very little luck in my research on the Jewish faith and their definition
16:52
Speaker0: of a ghost, other than to say that what I did find seems to support their belief that once then,
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Speaker0: a soul falls into the spiritual realm and cannot be seen in this world,
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Speaker0: which sort of negates the concept of a ghost.
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Speaker0: However, having grown up in New York City with many Jewish people,
17:11
Speaker0: I could assure you the ones that I grew up with did.
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Speaker0: So if you have any information about the Jewish faith and how they see ghosts
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Speaker0: or spirits, I would love to hear it.
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Speaker0: Just come to my blog or my Facebook group and share.
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Speaker0: Now, which brings me to my last story. What about the ghost that seems human
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Speaker0: and just comes to give you a message and then it's gone?
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Speaker0: Well, let me tell you a strange story that actually happened to me.
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Speaker0: Years ago my friend and i found ourselves in a bakery when a spirit that's right
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Speaker0: a spirit approached her and i
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Speaker0: and began singing a song now you might say what do you mean a spirit well,
17:57
Speaker0: this was a person looked like a person we both saw her but apparently nobody else did.
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Speaker0: And her connection was not to me but to my friend and a powerful message for
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Speaker0: her She was an old woman with a thick head of white hair and bluish tint in
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Speaker0: it and two slits for eyes, barely stand up on her own.
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Speaker0: Biggest smile, a happy kind of person. She approached my friend without any
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Speaker0: reason and just started singing.
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Speaker0: My friend broke out in tears until a final hug slapped her out of it.
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Speaker0: You see, this woman, or ghost, had given her a message from her father,
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Speaker0: who had recently passed away of Alzheimer's disease.
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Speaker0: My friend had never seen this woman before and had never seen her afterwards,
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Speaker0: at least as far as I'm aware of.
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Speaker0: Don't believe me? Well, if you're curious about the full story,
18:51
Speaker0: you can go find it on my blog, Wanted and Waiting.
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Speaker0: Just take a visit and look for the story called Oh, Danny Boy,
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Speaker0: a ghost story. Had I not been there, I might not have believed it myself,
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Speaker0: but there was no earthly way this entity could have known what she knew.
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Speaker0: And after she delivered her message, which was basically the song,
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Speaker0: Oh Danny Boy, she walked out of our lives never to be seen again.
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Speaker0: Which brings me to my last village. Believe it or not, voodoo.
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Speaker0: I actually like their version of the ghost.
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Speaker0: In voodoo, spirits and ghosts are common, and they're regarded as ancestral
19:30
Speaker0: guides, protectors, and even mischievous beings.
19:34
Speaker0: But they are believed to play a key role watching over an influence in the lives of their descendants.
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Speaker0: Much like that old Irish woman, and interestingly enough, my friend was of Irish
19:46
Speaker0: descent, but her family had been in America for generations.
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Speaker0: I find that very odd.
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Speaker0: So, it was telling that this woman came with a thick Irish accent and was hyper-focused
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Speaker0: on my friend that day, barely paying any mind to me.
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Speaker0: These spirits, according to voodoo, are not here to scare, but to protect and guide.
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Speaker0: And it's why voodoo ceremonies are often performed to honor and unlike Catholicism
20:12
Speaker0: in a lot of other religions, they seek to communicate with them.
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Speaker0: As spirits are not considered hauntings in the fearful sense but are respected
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Speaker0: and invoked for guidance, protection, and healing.
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Speaker0: This is forming a very intimate connection between the physical and spiritual
20:30
Speaker0: world, which I kind of wish more people had.
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Speaker0: So, well, if you've listened this far, I suppose you are a believer or you think I'm crazy.
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Speaker0: But if you are a believer, I thank you.
20:46
Speaker0: And in ending, I just want to close that the views of hauntings,
20:50
Speaker0: ghosts, and spirits, and the afterlife obviously vary across religions and cultures,
20:55
Speaker0: but our fascination with spirits transcends
20:58
Speaker0: all cultures and there is a shared curiosity
21:02
Speaker0: that we all have so next time you come across something odd be it a person an
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Speaker0: image an item or an experience you cannot explain open your mind to the possibility
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Speaker0: that you too may have been paid by a visit,
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Speaker0: and may also be waiting and haunted for an explanation yourself.
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Speaker0: And remember, sharing is caring,
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Speaker0: so feel free to share this with your friends or on your social media.
21:31
Speaker0: And until next time, this is Haunted and Waiting with Anne Lund. Thank you.