Hey everybody, this is Joshua Heston.
And I'm Lisa Martin.
And this is the Dark Ozarks on the Branson Podcast Network.
We're an exploration of everything that's dark in history, mysteries, the paranormal,
and everything else.
We explore the noir, the unknown, cryptozoology, UFOs, paranormal, and all the dark stuff that
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the Ozarks.
Welcome to the Dark Ozarks.
We are discussing mirrors, specifically magic, fairy tales, and ghosts.
From death customs to telling the future, mirrors have had a central place in the supernatural
for thousands of years.
We will get back to that in a minute.
But first we want to remind you that the Dark Ozarks podcast is now available on Branson
Podcast Network, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, Google Podcasts, Substack, or
about any other podcast platform.
So what might surprise people about that mirror hanging on their wall?
There could be a lot of things, from divining fortunes to looking into the future to trapping
spirits and yeah, we're looking at you, Bloody Mary, all the way to interdimensional travel.
There have been a lot of theories through time associated with mirrors.
And there are a few magic mirrors here in the Ozarks as well, if you believe the stories.
We will return to what might be behind your foggy bathroom mirror in a minute.
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large section on the paranormal, history, and more.
Not to mention, the building is haunted.
Tell Bob and Elise that we sent you.
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Beard Engine Brewing is the only English-style brewery in Missouri and has been twice named
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Great beer and great food in a historical building with a noir past.
And yes, this building is also haunted.
Tell Nate and Tip that we sent you.
Absolutely.
Great stuff.
Great people.
I need more books.
I would be happy to have more beer.
Yes, same.
So we'll be making that happen soon and maybe some announcements for some public events.
Excited about that.
We are coming up on that season and of course, encourage people to just be watching darkozarks.com
and the Dark Ozarks Facebook page for all of that.
And I'm going to be scared to brush my teeth tonight.
You know, beyond just the normal scare when you turn the light on.
Yeah.
I'm scared enough.
All by myself.
But there is something truly unsettling about mirrors once you sort of scrub away the ubiquitousness
of mirrors in our daily lives.
That's true.
And you know, it is kind of interesting because lore around mirrors goes back thousands of
years worldwide.
But it kind of breaks down two ways of how it developed, particularly in ancient times.
The West was more creeped out by mirrors overall, I'd say.
In the East.
And you can see in the lore that developed.
Even in the Near East, going back to the ancient Egyptians, there really was not this negative
or fearful side so much.
In fact, mirrors were a means of communicating with the gods.
And my guess is the ancient Egyptians would be a little perplexed at some of our phobias
about death and mirrors and so forth.
And then in the Far East, in China and Japan in particular, magic mirrors had a completely
different connotation of what magic was than developed in the West.
They did.
They really did.
And I found that very fascinating.
There is actually an extraordinarily rare Asian magic mirror, apparently in the Fine
Arts Collection in Cincinnati.
And basically, I mean, they were works of art.
Not many survived, but basically they were metal and with light shown on them, they become
translucent and etchings on them are then reflected onto a white wall or surface.
Much like magic lanterns became in the 18th and 19th century in the West, where basically
you would have an image backlit by a candle or whatever that was projected by a lens onto
a wall.
But they were doing this with metal thousands of years ago.
Yes, we're talking about bronze disks that it is really fascinating.
From what we can tell, in terms of the craftsmanship, we're really not sure how they made them.
We just know that they made them.
And we know that because a few do still exist.
But the craftsmanship would have to be amazing for this to happen because the symbols and
the images that would be cast were not visible by the naked eye.
No, it was only when you were actually using the mirror with a very strong light source
that it would reflect the patterns.
And apparently, what we can tell, the magic mirror in the Cincinnati Art Museum does date
to the 15th and 16th centuries.
But the records are that this type of mirror was first created in China during the Han
dynasty, which is 200 BC to 200 approximately AD.
Right.
And it may be a little different conception of the idea of magic of what we're used to
discussing on Dargozards or in the West generally.
But I can certainly see why they refer to them as magic mirrors.
Because there would be no apparent means of eliciting these images.
Very, very true.
And based on what seems to be projected from the mirrors, the mirrors appear to have been
created for religious significance.
And that, you know, I think is an important aspect.
These had great supernatural significance or at least directed toward a supernatural
focus, a religious focus, a faith focus, which, albeit not necessarily paranormal, is still
significant within the realm that we're talking about oftentimes with Dargozards and or for
an Ozarks connection.
There's a pretty strong indicator, certainly a potential existent rumor, that a Chinese
army may have marched through the Ozarks all the way to the St. Louis area.
In the fourteen hundreds.
Yes, that is true.
Might have had a disc with them.
But another interesting opposition to the West is that now often mirrors are placed
in temples and Buddhist temples and Shinto temples, both to as protective devices and
to repel ghosts and evil spirits.
And also in Japan, often they're viewed with this purpose in the homes, whereas in the
West, we worry about things being trapped in the mirrors and what could get through them
instead of protecting us from those things.
It is an interesting point of comparison.
And of course, mirrors figure heavily in Feng Shui and again, just the placement in general
for utilizing the movement of energy, repelling negative energy, moving positive energy within
a space as it's not that dissimilar to me to, for example, having winding paths leading
to the door instead of straight ones or putting a bottle tree next to next to the path to
the front door.
Very, very true.
And if we also look at the history of which balls in the West, which, you know, which
balls were used to repel or to repel witches or the evil eye.
And if you have a which ball that has a spine glass inside it, they are said to trap evil
spirits or evil witches.
I have several in my house.
In fact, I don't know if you've ever noticed several hanging in the dining room.
Because which is now what do you think is obviously with aspects of the West, there
are negative connotations with mirrors in the West as well as just a lot of lore.
What do you what do you think in terms of the more negative lore that we've grown up
with here in Western civilization?
One that you could lose your soul into a mirror.
And that can happen in several ways.
The other is that there can be things on the other side of the mirror, whether it be in,
you know, the other world beyond the veil or another dimension that could find their
way through and cause you harm.
I think I think those are probably the two.
Two things and and they both are premised on the fact that the mirror is permeable.
It is a surface that can be traveled through or across.
Right.
And so what we're really doing is that we're looking at the mirror as a doorway into the
door.
Into a world we don't know.
Right.
And and that could have consequences of death, loss of your soul or eternal entrapment.
Yes.
Or letting or letting loose the beasties that that could wreak havoc.
Yes.
And I do find it interesting.
So again, as with a lot of magical war, you the advice that you get is often contradictory.
Very head to head contradictory.
So in some cases, breaking obviously, we all know that breaking a mirror is seven years
bad luck.
So that is just a an understanding in our culture.
You don't have to explain its provenance.
We just know that's part of good luck versus bad luck.
But often people don't know why.
Why is it seven years?
Yes.
And the but the other thing that I think is interesting is that in some cases, breaking
the glass might open the portal.
Other also Western lore, breaking the glass might close the portal.
That's true.
And I guess, to be perfectly honest, you never really know in one given situation, which
way that's going to work.
So it's kind of it's kind of like the movie scene when, you know, someone's disarming
the bomb and they have to pick between the two wires and they're not sure.
And it's 50 50.
And so sometimes it kind of works that way with breaking a mirror in these situations.
So if you are ever presented with a cursed mirror and you don't know whether to keep
it in one piece or break it, just check your watch and see how much longer your movie is.
That's true.
You'll find out.
If you're just just depends on what you're accurate.
But
but before I forget, some people may be wondering, you know, why seven years?
And I remember, you know, younger years going by seven, you know, and I've heard
people say, well, seven is just, you know, it's a, you know, a number surrounding luck.
But the lore actually is a little deeper that supposedly that seven, it takes seven years
for you for a soul to migrate if it's lost.
So is this based on the idea that there's a soul trapped in the mirror and that breaking
it releases it into the ether?
Well that breaking it actually can cause you to lose your soul.
Gotcha.
And in which case, some of the lore says bury the pieces and don't ever look at the pieces
because that's how you can lose your soul into a broken mirror.
But if all else fails to grind it up
to basically dust.
Yes.
So I'm not sure, you know, again, it's do I bury it or
even with the idea with the lore, the protective lore around it, around the mirror, there is,
it is perhaps significant that there is duality within that, that there is constant contradiction
even in what to do, you know, in case of a fire break glass.
No way.
Go.
Especially with the fire on the other side of the veil.
Yes, yes.
You just keep that there.
And you know, the, the, the, the idea which, you know, we're going to get into some, some
individual experiences that, that begin to move this out of the realm of a theory and
into actually contemplation as far as investigation or occurrence.
But the idea that it's
at the point of death, you make sure that the mirrors are covered because the person's
soul could be trapped in them after it exits the body at point of death.
Yes, that basically they see the mirror get confused and go into it and can be trapped.
And so, and then usually the lore is that this is a risk until they're buried, which
I find is a bit of a conundrum because the idea that is the soul separate from the body,
but once it's buried, it's okay.
I right.
And I think, I think obviously the idea is something that is, is a bit more that is probably
a bit old fashioned for most of us, but the idea of resting in peace in a consecrated
graveyard likely that's, that's, that's, that's probably, that's probably where that comes
from.
But then again, there's stories of, you know, haunted graveyards that go back hundreds of
years.
Yes, or at least, at least if they're going to haunt something, they're not going to be
stuck in your mirror.
They're going to be at the graveyard where they can be contained.
Well, they're, they're pretty contained in the mirror, but you know, you just have to
look at the way you're brushing your teeth.
Exactly.
You don't want to do that.
So you put it in the graveyard, the consecrated graveyard, fully riffing here.
And this, this is again, once you're, once you're dealing with investigation and once
you're dealing with war, you really have to separate yourself from the very concrete logical
and rational physics that we're accustomed to dealing with because you, you, once you
begin interacting with the spiritual realm or realms, the rules of physics don't apply.
Therefore our rules of logic don't necessarily apply.
And so you do have to take these on a case by case basis.
In so many cases, there seems to be nothing about a graveyard or mirror that is tethering
or trapping or keeping or enticing a spirit to stay within that location.
And so for us as investigators, for example, with cemeteries, you know, it's bad luck to
go to a cemetery at night.
It's spooky to go to a cemetery at night.
Oh my gosh, you'd never be at the cemetery, the stroke of midnight.
You'd never be at a cemetery during the witching hour, these types of things.
And we do that on a regular basis.
It's not creepy.
It's oftentimes very beautiful, very peaceful.
Even when there is paranormal activity, it can be very, very, very positive experience.
And that's something that I think a lot of would be ghost hunters or people who are excited
about it or allured by it would be scratching their heads.
But interacting with the dead can be a very peaceful, beautiful and enriching experience.
In the vast majority of cases, there's nothing to be creeped out about.
And at the same time, I think it's very important for us as investigators and folklorists and
historians to approach those rare instances when the dogmatic lore somehow applies.
True.
That happens too.
It doesn't happen across the board, but then it can happen according to the lore or in
accordance with the lore.
That's true.
And that brings to mind one piece of lore that fits into all of this because it has
to do with the soul is that we all know that in the vampire movie or the werewolf movie
that they have no reflection.
And the idea, the reason they have no reflection in the mirror is because they're at this point
have no soul or the werewolf would have a soul in human form, but theoretically not
in werewolf form.
And then there's lore that basically goes the same for demons that a demon does not
have a reflection in the mirror, although he could be trapped in the mirror and you
could see him.
But that's another algebra problem.
X and Y are not anyways.
But so much of this is tied up into the interaction relationship between a soul and a mirror.
And that is also why there are devices that basically came out of the Middle Ages and
during the witch hunts.
They're called witch bosses and basically and they can be employed in investigations
as well.
I've used them before.
The bots made out of mirrors all facing inside.
The idea is that spirit is trapped in the box and technique that can be used and I've
used before is actually you have the mirrored box and it's sealed on all sides and you have
an audio recorder in it inside the box while you do a EVV session.
It's a little bit different play sort of on the Estes method that's so big right now.
But it goes back to the idea that in the Middle Ages during witch hunts that you could trap
a witch's soul in the witch box with the mirrors.
Interesting.
In terms of the investigation with paranormal investigations, what are your thoughts about
using a witch box?
I don't know that it really does anything one way or another that you get any more results.
We would use it and then have separate reporters in the same room.
The idea comparing do you get different responses inside the box or more clear responses.
It really didn't get any significant evidence indicating one way or the other.
That's probably why I haven't done it in quite a while.
However I do think that you could probably experiment with something along those lines
and then with magnets and electricity that you might get something more.
Very true.
This is where talking it reminds me growing up there was one family member's bathroom
that had opposing sinks.
It was like a galley.
What do they call it?
It's not the eternal.
The phrase just left my brain.
Where it's an eternal mirror image.
Yes.
You're not supposed to stand between them.
When you have to walk between them to get to the toilet it's a little difficult.
I don't think the designer thought of that.
Interesting obstacle course.
How bad do I have to go to the bathroom?
I was about nine at the time.
Had I known the lore I would have been on my hands and knees crawling under the sinks
between the sinks to go to the bathroom.
I think that's interesting.
I found it fascinating.
For the record I did look at myself in that space.
I would actually goof off because you poke your head in and look one way and you see
your head into infinity.
Yes.
It was quite entertaining.
However that could mean that my soul has actually been splintered into infinity.
We released an infinite number of nine-year-old Josh's into the interdimensional plane which
actually could explain a lot of what's wrong with everything at this point.
All because I had to go to pee.
I wasn't going to say but it might actually explain a few things.
It really does.
I won't argue with that.
The flip side is and I forget the name of the pandemonium room basically.
I can't remember the name of it.
Which is a room that is all mirrored.
Now in Eastern traditions it is a good thing.
It is often used to do yoga in and to focus the mind.
Again it's a situation where the same thing is viewed very differently in the East versus
the West.
It is.
It does remind me of something.
I will probably get stung by my toes on.
There's at least an infinite number of Josh's running around in other universes.
It doesn't matter.
As someone who is a long-time yoga practitioner, I have done yoga for a long time.
Yoga is a really good way to come face to face with your subconscious.
Especially in the meditation portions.
I know that because I have done it.
I have done a lot of that practice.
There are times that coming face to face with your subconscious can be very unsettling.
Especially if we are very repressed over particular emotions at particular times.
I have a strong opinion on this that individuals who have a negative opinion about yoga and
the idea that it is somehow demonic, etc.
I have heard those arguments.
I respect those positions.
In so many cases where we are not meeting something dark, we are meeting our subconscious
and it is scaring the hell out of us.
For those that are scared of it, for me, I would be more concerned of why you are so
scared of facing yourself.
I was just saying, ironically, you hear that more these days than you used to.
I remember when I started hearing that argument, I thought, it doesn't make much sense if you
have practiced yoga.
That is just me.
I have practiced it a lot.
It is something that I find very effective, very important.
For those of us who do it, it is a very powerful and beautiful expression.
You do come face to face with your darker sides.
I think the big issue is that if you don't realize, and this is easy enough to have this
happen if you are not schooled in the process, if you don't have the awareness, you can encounter
things within this, within the processes that are scary and you don't realize that it is
something that is a part of yourself that you have to work through.
In the same sense that most nightmares are simply our subconscious trying to get our
attention about something and we are too busy to listen.
Exactly.
The same goes for different aspects of paranormal investigation as well.
I think that sometimes when people have a negative experience, it is often because of
their own fears, their own emotions and mental state, and not as far as mental health, but
just are you in a good state of mind at the time?
That leads to these situations that people have a very strong reaction against and feel
that it is very negative and they project that onto the environment or the spirit or
entity involved.
Whereas a lot of times it is more the living person that is the catalyst for what is going
on.
As it is.
All of this is happening on an energetic level that doesn't involve or doesn't necessarily
involve verbal communication.
Very true.
Most people are not adept or experienced at that kind of communication, that kind of sensory
perception.
When suddenly it happens, I find that people either have a sort of that almost a fight
or flight dichotomy.
Either they accept it and accept that they are a part of this exchange of energy or it
is bad.
I think this is really important not only to mirrors, but also just in terms of paranormal
investigations as a whole, or finding yourself perhaps inadvertently as I want to do, inadvertently
in spaces that have a lot of activity.
For people who are, for example, freaked out about the yoga aspect because of its Eastern
religion aspects, bringing it back to something that has no religious connotation to it whatsoever,
for me, which is how I typically center myself before going into an investigation, is coming
back to the space as though I were walking into a stable full of horses.
Because horses communicate via more on an energetic level.
It is nonverbal communication.
We do know that they have a very sophisticated communication process and they react to energy.
If you have ever ridden a horse, you know that they are going to react.
If you are going to get on a horse, you need to understand that they are going to read
your energy and take cues from you or react badly from you.
Moving yourself into a centered place where you are simply existing, observing, and not
pushing is really crucial in terms of interacting with horses.
For example, if I am getting ready to, and I love animals, I love big animals, so I do
not have a problem, for example, walking into a frown full of horses.
But I need to make sure that I am doing it the right way.
Exactly.
Honestly, that comes with being around large animals in general.
Something you learn growing up with them.
I grew up on a ranch.
I think that often people forget, I mean people react on an energetic level.
We do.
We all do.
A lot of people do not recognize that or make that connection, but we do.
If you walk into any situation, whether it is investigating or a group, a room full of
people, in a lot of ways it is the same skill set.
It is important to recognize that you are part of that process, if nothing else, because
of your reactions.
By just divorcing yourself as an actor in the process, it is sort of like cutting your
nose off to spite your face.
It is.
It is something that we see a lot with this sort of postmodern superficiality, sort of
the plastic society approach that I think many of us in the West, and many of us in
North America in particular, and in the United States in specific, are really, we are inured
within, we are implicated within this process.
The mistaken belief structure is that we as an individual, I am somehow above, separate,
and not part of the world around me.
Yes.
That is a good way of putting it.
It is the idea that we are essentially othering everything.
That might be the other people in the banquet.
It might be the other, for example, interacting with animals as though there is some sort
of other, as opposed to where we are sharing energy on a one-on-one basis.
Then it really becomes the other when it is the paranormal.
Very much so, which is a large part of, we mentioned witchcraft, which is earlier, which
is a large part of what is magic, what is witchcraft.
The whole idea is people who can do something.
Yes.
They affect the environment.
Often in our postmodern society, we say, oh, that cannot be done.
It is just written off.
Affecting the environment, affecting the energies in a room on a fundamental level is exactly
that.
It is.
It takes on many forms.
Because again, we are dealing with an energetic tool set, these tools can be used for a wide
variety of reasons.
It also depends on the perspective of the person employing the tools or the perspective
of the person who is the beneficiary of the results of the tools to decide whether or
not that is good or bad.
That is true.
It makes me come in full circle in the discussion.
It makes me think a little bit about some of the ancient uses of mirrors.
Most people think of mirrors as a glass object, but basically a very shiny object, whether
it is metal, it can even be stone or whatever, goes back to the ancient Egyptians and the
use of mirrors to travel basically to the other world and back.
The process that they believe that mirrors play in that is very much what in the 21st
century people would call astral projection.
Yes.
To me, that is both fascinating and it might actually be laying the groundwork for things
trapped in mirrors or the idea that a part of you goes someplace else and cannot find
its way back.
True.
But the conception that they used was that basically through the use of the technique
with the mirrors that you would be temporarily detached from your body.
Yes.
Trapped.
They really seemed to have the concept of being trapped in the mirror, that it was more
just a tool to use, like getting in your car.
It, one, something that seems to be consistently implied with the study of the ancient world
is that the ancient world may not necessarily have had our technology, but that they had
a highly sophisticated understanding of, for example, what we're talking about, these energetic
processes or a better understanding of what we would call the subconscious or the astral
plane, these types of things.
The things that in so many cases that we here in the West are barely discovering or we have
an infantile knowledge of, if we have any knowledge of it at all.
And one possibility, I'm just throwing this out here, I have no idea what I'm talking
about.
I'm just spitballing.
But certainly with the fall, the monolithic weight of the Roman Empire, which seemed to
place a lot more emphasis on governance and military than it did on inner journey.
And then from there, the collapse of the empire and the loss of so much ancient knowledge
that the remnants of that could be as simple as knowing that, for example, sending the
soul onto a journey into another plane is possible with the mirror, but you might not
have the tools intuitively to bring it back.
I can see that.
And it also might kind of explain sort of that divergence, continued divergence between
East and West, because they did not have the same break in technology and sort of setbacks
in education and knowledge that the West did.
And knowledge that quote was lost in the West still existed for the most part, most of it
that we know of, but existed in the East, in the Near East, in parts of Africa.
But that break, as you just described with Rome and the consequences, that could explain
a lot of that divergence and why perhaps so much fear along with it, whereas other parts
of the world that didn't go through that tumultuous decline and have more continuity seem to view
these things in a more positive light.
That the knowledge of the tool set, the knowledge that these sorts of things are possible existed,
but the precise means of doing it safely or effectively might have been lost in the process.
And you know, I mean, that would be analogous to having a car to drive, but not knowing
how.
Basically, you've lost the key.
Yeah, yeah.
Or you've lost the memory of how to do it, but it still runs, which is actually terrifying.
That's a central crisis.
As you drive over a cliff.
And it is, you know, I think, again, I think that there is also an innate dichotomy.
I think that there's a physical dichotomy in terms of knowledge retained and knowledge
lost.
And with that comes familiarity or fear.
But I think that there is a natural dichotomy that once you begin potentially interacting
with these other realms, that some things are very positive and some things can smack
back.
And part of the ancient knowledge would presumably have involved being able to tell the difference.
But if we're if we're bereft of that knowledge, then all of it could be potentially dangerous
as an idea.
That is true.
Now here's a crack here.
Tell me what you think.
For instance, in voodoo, mirrors are often kept in the kitchen, which, you know, in the
West, we tend not to do that.
But they keep mirrors in the in the kitchen so that ghosts can consume food that is reflected
in the mirror.
Yes.
I think that's a fine them and appeasing them, I would assume.
So where do you think like that comes into play?
Of course, you have the coming together of European traditions and African traditions
in that.
So where would you say that fits in with your missing knowledge or?
I do think that it's it certainly hints at something very tantalizing, which is the possibility
that the West African, particularly the Benin religion or animism culture, which is oftentimes
regarded as sort of a primitive or backwards belief structure very far away from the more
quote unquote enlightened ancient religions, for example, Egypt or China or the Indian
subcontinent, so on and so forth.
That it might not be that that are.
Our traditions that that are coming from West Africa may actually be vastly more sophisticated
and and deep into this sort of subconscious archetypal war that that exists.
I think that's really fascinating.
I also think that it really speaks to the.
In many cases, the warmth and the bonds that are implied from not only West African culture,
but it reminds me of similarities of Mayan culture and Latin American pre-Catholic culture
that is reflected in the idea that the dead are simply our family members, that we're
still communing with, we're still talking to, in some cases we're still feeding, we're
still making sure that they're OK.
And that begins a transition.
To me, a really beautiful transition.
When I read that, I actually made me want to go find a mirror and then cut some food.
And I in the idea that from a from a very.
Beautiful and I would say earthy or connective or emotionally warm place.
The idea that you're.
You're not appeasing the spirits as much as you're making sure that your family's fed.
Yes, yes.
And I do, I do really like that.
And throw a monkey wrench into that or something, you know, take a sharp left turn.
Then there was the conception of the Aztecs that mirrors basically were a symbol of war.
Right and.
Duality.
Duality, but I don't think that's a monkey wrench.
I think I think that the commonality that we're seeing with all of the lore is it is
this and that.
Simultaneously it's a Janus fairy.
It's you know, and I was I was wanting to throw this in really quickly and I think it
does say in and we'll come back to the Aztecs and John D.
But the idea that so you know, I think I think I've done an effective job of of mounting
the argument that that so much of this lore is not scary.
It's not.
It's not spooky that there does seem to be an ancient tradition that is associating the
paranormal supernatural and with the idea of the mirrors a portal or a conduit of some
sort involving energy.
These types of things that seems to resonate with our our our minds or spirits, even if
it doesn't make sense to our rational mind, all of these things and that the scary parts
are just us interacting with our subconscious, so on and so forth.
All that to be said, there is one bit of lore, which is the idea that a mirror beside your
bed and steal your soul or that something can come through.
And for the record, I will not have a mirror in my bedroom.
I will not have a mirror next to my bed.
And if I am someplace that I that a mirror is in that situation, I'm going to cover it
because I'm not dealing with that.
And we'll we'll tell the story behind that.
Yes.
Personal experience.
Because there there are and this is again, I think it speaks to the duality there.
There's.
The very beautiful aspects of this portal concept.
And there are very comforting aspects to the supernatural, the paranormal concepts.
There's very peaceful aspects to it.
There are aspects that we simply need to understand our subconscious.
There are also any time that you are dealing with portals.
We are also dealing with the potential of things that may be predatory and or ominous
that are outside of our subconscious.
This is not just a reflection of our subconscious.
There may be something else that is there.
That's true.
And that the question mark and all that, I think, is what is both tantalizing and often.
Creates fear in people.
It does.
And and certainly a foundation to what is consistently one of the previous or the cheap
list jump scares in a horror movie, which is something reflected behind you in the mirror.
That's true.
And there are a few places that those kind of things actually do happen with mirrors
and people see things.
And it does remind me you saying that reminds me again of the movie Prince of Darkness,
where the mirror is the is the main focal point of as a a barrier and a doorway.
To the netherworld that the devil or demon is is held from this world on the other side.
And that that barrier that we take for granted in a lot of ways that this world and that
world are separate very much plays on that, including to the point of, you know, of shriveled
clawed fingers coming through the surface of the mirror and then ultimately, apparently
being a means of time travel.
Yes.
And jumping back really quickly to the the Aztecs, the idea that the mirror was representative
of both fire and water, which I found.
Again, we do keep coming back to this symbol of duality comes back to duality, but duality
that as you break it apart and put it back together, it makes sense.
The mirror is reflective.
It's like reflective water.
The Celts considered the mirror image of a pool of water, a bog, a pond to be a liminal
space and an opening into the underworld.
It appears that the Aztecs were perhaps channeling the same similarities of idea.
In this case, the mirror is is representative of water as well as the elemental subconscious
and magical properties of water.
At the same time, a mirror can be used to focus sunlight.
It should create fire, which is also associated with war.
And a lot of their mirrors were made from obsidian, which is basically volcanic glass,
which I'm sure they realized made association of the glass coming from the volcanoes and
fire.
So you have this obsidian that is born of fire.
Reflects fire, focuses light into fire, but shimmers like the surface of water.
Yes, which is really, it is beautiful.
I love this because it's really forcing.
It's an unboxing.
It's forcing us to.
Meme reference.
It is forcing the mind to get outside of it's this or it's that.
Right, right.
And that sense of duality is probably a good segue into discussing John Dee.
Aside from the fact that he used an Aztec mirror to describe.
He did, and John Dee is one of our heroes, I think.
I think it's fair to say.
He is born in 1527 and died in 1608 or 9.
He actually died, we don't know when he died and we don't know where he's buried.
No, because he had a falling out with the king after he saved him.
James had that habit.
I get that.
Oh, and John Dee for people who are unfamiliar was an English polymath.
He was court astronomer and astrologer and advisor to Queen Elizabeth I.
And his resume included but was not limited to mathematician, astronomer, astrologer,
teacher, occultist, and alchemist.
And.
And by some accounts, which Hunter.
Yes, and by other accounts of which.
Yes.
So, you know, again, you know, it kind of just depends on which side you're on.
It really, really does.
I am fascinated by the fact that his grave site is unknown.
It's very vivid for him.
This made and fascinated.
I was also very pleased in doing some additional research for the episode to realize that the
John Dee was of Welsh ancestry.
Yes.
Not, so I'm not surprised about that.
And very excited as well for personal reasons.
And John Dee is as really as far as I'm concerned, as close as you can get to the archetypal
magician wizard in our current historical narrative.
I think that is very fair to say.
And it's in some ways it's perplexing that he's not as well known as some others such
as Nostradamus, who we will mention in a moment as well.
Yeah, but he I mean.
He served Elizabeth the first.
Using his occultist powers a very successfully.
And went on his basically sabbatical and to consternation of Elizabeth as well as other
regions in Europe who either viewed him with open arms or suspiciously as a spy.
And then came back a bit of a rocky relationship with Elizabeth after that, but did serve James.
And if stories are to be believed that through use of his obsidian mirror was able to reveal
the gunpowder plot.
Interesting.
And this this obsidian mirror is believed and pretty securely believe to have been of
Aztec origin.
Yes, they they've determined that through a scientific examination that the obsidian
came from a particular volcano that I think is about 30 or 35 miles from Mexico City.
Yes.
So it made its way back with the Spanish and he procured it.
And I think it sits in one one of a museum in London, I believe, doesn't it?
Quite possibly.
I'm not 100% sure, but it is on believe it is on display.
And I'm just curious as to what John D did to procure it.
I think that could be a story in and of itself.
I've read a couple of articles previously that basically there's some conjecture that
he's procured it through a particular conquested or but they really don't know.
They're really kind of perplexed how he ended up in England.
But that his divination using a screen would be was very successful and accurate as those
things went.
So so coming into that and just digging into scrying is a subject because the mirrors,
there's a number of things that are used for scrying, but mirrors are certainly a dominant
tool.
And the question is, how?
How does someone scry?
Well, to be in some ways, you can sort of equate it to the discussion earlier with yoga
and confronting the unknown, the unknown versus the unconscious and yoga that things are revealed
and from a purely objective scientific basis, you would say it's peridelia.
It's just manifestations of the subconscious, etc. that you're seeing, you know, either
tricks of light in the mirror or say Nostradamus with all of his predictions, he used a bowl,
a dark bowl, and I can't remember, I think it was metal, but I may be wrong with water.
And he would see images in the water.
And this is very much the same ideas as crystal balls as people, you know, have seen them
used by, you know, fortune tellers, etc.
It's the same concept.
And I think it's one of the things that I'm a little sad that we essentially lost beginning
with James the first and then continued to lose as we moved into the Cromwell era.
Oh, no more Christmas is that prior to James the first, we certainly, I think it would
be reasonable to say that Elizabeth was really at the pinnacle of this brave new world in
which these types of art, and I would classify it as an art more than a science, but that
these types of arts were recognized, were held in comparatively high esteem.
It was not, you know, something that was looked askance at, obviously, of a memory serves,
and it was utilized astrology to choose Elizabeth's coronation date for her for an auspicious
day.
Yes.
And then we see how well that worked out.
One of the most successful monarchs in all of English history.
And at the same time, this is Queen Elizabeth was not someone that we think of as flighty
or superstitious or capricious in, you know, off on flights of fancy and following crazy
ideas.
Here was a woman who was extremely grounded in her leadership.
She was grounded in the military and the economic needs of her burgeoning empire, and at the
same time, very comfortable with a favorite court astrologer and with James, beginning
with James and then continuing on into the Civil War, slash Puritan Wars, etc.
We just began this monumental shift away from that mindset that it could be both.
We could be perfectly grounded, rational leader who also without contradiction embraces these
arts that less sense to someone who is not skilled in them.
Very true.
I think that it's a matter that my guess is just she viewed it as one more set of tools.
And one that seems as with, you know, some of these situations, some of the my understanding
is that she would consult John Dee in terms of potential assassination attempts on her,
of which there were many.
Yes.
And, etc. and presumably she was doing so because he had a good track record.
I would assume and I mean, obviously she had a very long reign that did was not ended by
violence.
So I think that astutely she was looking at probably the advice from on all fronts and
then trying and then making that decision of what made sense based on all the information.
And again, John Dee is a little more complicated than being an astrologer.
He was so gifted and skilled in so many areas that I think I would assume that he came at
things with all of those disciplines at once, which most people don't do granted that probably
ended up with a more balanced sense than we would normally give credit to when we hear
the word astrology.
I think that is extremely fair and something that is to be really fascinating about the
aspect of really the fusion between science and art.
And typically in our in our very modern world or postmodern world now, we separate those
two into very far apart boxes.
And our cultural mind and I think that that does a disservice to both.
You look at the alchemical roots of individuals like Isaac Newton, you look at the scientific
roots of individuals like John Dee, and you see that there is a fusion as we're coming
into the early modern era in England and as England is becoming the British Empire, which
is apparently or allegedly a term coined by John Dee, the British Empire, is a beautiful
fusion of science, rationality and the esoteric arts that we don't really hold particular
space for at this time.
No, and really, when you think about it, to be perfectly honest, in a lot of ways, there's
not a lot of difference between John Dee and Isaac Newton as far as their interests in
the things that they researched.
Very similar.
The most notable difference is that, you know, is that Dee ended up holding a position of
court astrologer, whereas Newton was at university.
But they both were pursuing alchemy and these esoteric arts as well as science.
They were, which is something that in the cursory reviews and our cursory understanding,
sort of our grade school understanding of Sir Isaac Newton, it's usually left out of
the process.
We've got, you know, Isaac inventing calculus and having a figurative or perhaps literal
apple drop on his head to give us the gravity.
And that's usually about as far as it goes.
So digging for these esoteric arts is, I think, on an initial review can be very unsettling
for individuals who aren't prepared for their hyper rational scientific heroes to be meddling
around in this kind of stuff.
But it wasn't by accident.
Very true.
I want to switch gears a little bit and kind of do compare and contrast with Dee with Nostradamus.
I think it is fascinating.
And Nostradamus is a household name, but most people don't know a lot about what it was
he was actually doing.
True.
And again, in a lot of ways, he fits into this same box with Newton and Dee.
He was a physician.
So he was a man of medicine at the time, as medicine was at the time.
He actually treated plague victims.
But he would use the divining arts through mirrors and water.
And he hid this pretty much because it could get you killed.
But similar to Dee, he did end up in the favor of the queen because his reputation did get
around even though he was trying not to get a foul with the law and the crown.
And he made a prediction of how or what could be interpreted as a prediction of how the
king would die.
And King Henry died jousting with a splinter through the eye.
And of course, anyone familiar with the quatrains of Nostradamus, they are poetic, vague in
a lot of ways, and certainly open to interpretation.
But that one is interesting because while a lot of them people say he predicted this
400 years in the future, this was something that happened in his lifetime.
And it certainly caught the attention of the queen.
And then it tended to bear itself out.
But he was still very careful to not portray himself as actually predicting the future
because he didn't want to run afoul of the church, et cetera, either.
And that's why we do have his writings that are so vague.
And now people say, oh, he predicted 911, he predicted this, he predicted that, which
you read them and it's like, it could be this or it could be that.
It could describe a lot of things that have happened.
But in essence, he had a very similar, if not personality, career path as Dee.
But I think the reason that he is so well known now is just because he wrote down the
quatrains.
I think that's very fair.
And my general understanding is probably mid-'80s, late-'80s, there started to be semi-historical
boundaries with a bit of a lean toward the gratuitous in terms of exciting the imagination
about Nostradamus, about his predictions, about the fact that here's a character, a
personality from the Renaissance who has these predictions that are speaking to us about
something today.
And almost salacious nature of magical voyeurism in that sense that it's getting you to watch
the Mountain Dew commercial to get to the next part where Nostradamus is going to reveal
your future as well.
And I think that is the romanticism of it is that if he was accurate, even with just
a percentage of his quatrains, then it might be possible that we all might define our future
if we are so accurate.
And that's both exciting and frightening.
I think because, and again, coming back to the mirrors and then the association scrying,
we're looking at mirrors utilized for defining the future, to looking into the future and
saying what's going to happen.
And that is something that is extraordinarily enticing, equal parts frightening.
It is.
I'm curious your thought on this.
How would you view scrying with mirrors or mirror-like surfaces, all included, versus
other divination that is still done, say tea leaves and things like that, chicken bones,
things like that?
It is interesting.
And I don't have a good answer in that regard.
The commonality that is, I think, both wise and confounding simultaneously is that if
you yourself happen to be unfamiliar with the practice, and most of us are unfamiliar
with the practice, we could have two people in front of us using any of the potential
methods, scrying mirror, crystal ball, et cetera, that we, the chicken bones, it doesn't
really matter.
And one person could be doing it correctly, and another person could just be making stuff
up.
And we on the outside wouldn't necessarily be able to tell the difference.
I mean, that's true.
I wonder if there's something more unique with a mirrored surface that interacts with
our subconscious.
That, I think, is fair.
I think, again, it is associated with that sense of portal, that sense of a window into
another world.
And there are aspects of mirror work that are hard to duplicate in other forms of divination.
Your tea leaves, your chicken bones, your variety of divination tools.
It's not a reflective or immersive portal.
That's true.
The sense of three dimension, I think, has an effect on the brain and perhaps intuitive
powers, I'm not sure.
And there's the aspects of potential connection with the subconscious, which is extraordinary.
But then there is that next step, which is you may be connecting with something that's
no longer internal.
That's true.
And as soon as you make the leap that you are interacting with even the fates to see
the future, you open that possibility that it's something else, that you have no control
over and may have its own intelligence and free will.
It reminds me of the moment with the volunteer in Fellowship of the Ring.
They're not all crowded for.
Maybe you don't know who may be watching.
Exactly.
And it's certainly a practice that has made its way into the modern New Age and Wiccan
communities.
Yes, it absolutely has.
With a variety of reactions and responses.
I think there is something innately engaging.
There's something archetypal about the work that we recognize it.
And we don't just recognize it.
It doesn't just resonate because we watched Wizard of Oz.
But I think that when the original audiences watched Wizard of Oz, those moments resonated
on an archetypal level as well.
The idea that there are powers, there are esoteric arts, there are ways of doing things
or affecting the world around us or seeing things that could not otherwise be seen.
And that this is part of the human story, albeit one that has largely been lost in modernity.
And so we resort to fiction and dramatization and novelization to explore these things.
Because it's very difficult to explore these things in a more traditional or educational
realms.
True.
That said, many of the New Age and Wiccan practices involving these things are, for
better or for worse, detached from the actual lineage of ancient knowledge, despite what
might be said.
And that in both cases, much, though not all, of Wicca is very modern, was developed in
the 20th century, and is certainly a read on, in many cases, Celtic paganism, as well
as other typically European, although not limited to European.
In some cases, pre-Christian practices, or in other cases, folk magic, lore that was
in opposition with the authoritarian aspects of the more overarching church.
So there is an element of reactionary, reactionism, and as a result of that.
There is also the aspect that it has to be recognized as a newer religion than it appears
or it feels like, just based on its historical reality.
Yeah, I agree with you there.
Before I forget, I was going to mention, see your thoughts, the significance of the convent
mirror.
Besides conveniently spotting that 18th wheeler creeping up on my left bumper.
I do find it interesting that they're associated with demons and driving.
Well, that's fair.
Very, very fair.
Drive around town today, that's for sure.
No, I think it's interesting, to say the least.
I am personally fascinated.
The thing that really stood out to me about many of these aspects with mirrors, and again,
I'm going to resort to a dichotomy.
On one hand, something that we see is a mystical obsession with mirrors in an era when mirrors
were not common.
I think that has to be taken into account at a time when, certainly we'll just take the
Renaissance period, at a point when the technology had developed in order that a very effective
mirrors could be created, mirrors that were concave, mirrors that were convex, mirrors
that were flat, could be created and were almost de facto put into use in varying ways
associated with the esoteric arts, associated with conjuring, associated with divination,
associated with reaching into portals of other realms, comes into play.
Certainly the everyday people who were far removed from this technology couldn't help
but look at this stuff very differently than we would look at it today.
True.
It is automatically easy to simply relegate the esoteric art aspect or the magical quality
to primitive superstitious people, so on and so forth.
I also think that that would be a mistake because we seem to consistently see odd and
interesting things archetypally and then also in actuality happening around these mirrors
through the ages.
I think, again, the answer is both, but as to the demons with concave or convex mirrors,
I'm a bit of a loss, but I do like to have one on my side panel on the truck.
I'm right there with you on that one.
Now, what you just said pretty well leads into we have to talk about Bloody Mary a little
bit.
I love Bloody Mary.
She's spooky.
The antecedents to the Bloody Mary game actually go back a very long ways.
They do.
The current iteration of Bloody Mary almost exists really just an urban legend as teenagers
trying to spook each other out on sleepovers.
That's really the construct that we have for Bloody Mary.
The bits and pieces of the lore tend to vary, but for people who are not familiar, basically
you say Bloody Mary three times while looking into a mirror and she appears over your shoulder,
but only in the mirror.
Then she may answer questions.
Yes.
Basically, it's a bit like summoning a genie with a mirror and albeit unhappy dead spirit
slash demonic slash poltergeist aspect that you're conjuring and then you're harnessing
what you've conjured.
Which tends to not engender affection.
No, it's the idea that and certainly there is an unspoken implication in the story, which
is if you're in theory that there was someone long ago who was very good at conjuring and
harnessing and so that if you were skilled in the arts, you could do this sort of thing
safely but chances are if you're a 14 year old kid in your suburban parent's bathroom,
the likelihood that you have the requisite skill is unlikely so you're taking a grave
risk.
And 14 year old girls, these iterations of what became Bloody Mary go back hundreds of
years and tend to revolve around young girls trying to figure out who they're going to
marry.
Yes, which is a consistent theme and divination.
It is, it is, and it is also what they believe started the Salem witch trials basically.
Into a bowl of water with broken eggs, which really is the surface of the water is again
using a mirror.
Yeah, it is.
You know, I just realized that if they did it wrong back in Salem, they might have accidentally
conjured Bloody Mary and she just, you know, wreaked havoc and initiated the witch trials.
That's not an official theory.
No, it is not.
I am.
But certainly certainly be a discussionary tale about about doing this.
Well, it also speaks to the fact that in order to be in order to be a witch hunter, you have
to be a pretty good witch yourself.
Although they would never admit it.
No, absolutely not.
I mean, the ear of the Ozarks, it's called being a power doctor.
That's right.
Because you don't use the term witch.
And that being said,
another use of the mirrors is that part of the lore is that a mirror will turn dark in the presence of an evil witch or evil spirit.
That is so it's like a comfort.
So again, duality, either the mirrors going to go dark and you don't see anything, or you see the evil spirit through the mirror, and you have to worry about it.
One or the other.
Either. So, obviously the there's the scrying aspect and the long standing
divination for one's future partner.
But we you know and we, that is that is typically the the impetus behind a dumb supper. That is the the impetus for Apple divination Halloween, and the use of apples in Halloween.
And traditions like bobbing for apples.
Now, coming back to Bloody Mary. I largely know Bloody Mary as simply the urban legend, and also from one episode on supernatural which are like,
the idea of a ghost, tormented soul, existing within the mirror waiting, unhappily to answer your questions, don't let her off the leash.
That's a pretty dark territory. Well, I mean, you're you're one step away from middle juice, you know, times.
And you don't have to use a mirror either.
Which I'm sure you know I you know, my guess is that Bloody Mary is the sort of the inspiration for that.
Right.
It's to me it is, it is fascinating, and it's, you know, it goes into a pretty large pantheon of
humans, spirits, dangerous fey that are traditionally female.
Oh, there are the fair share that are males.
That's true.
Is there is there a lot of tradition of adolescent boys doing Bloody Mary or is it mostly girls.
I think.
Obviously, I've never done it but that just seemed like a bad idea.
I just always thought it was stupid myself.
I'm just being candid.
Yeah, fair.
I think it's very fair. I was.
Just in terms of the, you know, reaching into the, the other realm and I was contemplating the banshee.
And, and also the faith. The traditional, both the Greek and the Norse traditions of the faiths that the, you know, reminders to me of these things.
Yeah, the winter.
The Jewish power that all of these things just remind me a little bit of time in, you know, divination, death.
And, and, and even though we're dealing we're dealing with near spirits. The, there is an aspect of it that reminds me of the say the idea that you're, you're you're interacting with the other, you're interacting with the other world, and it could really go badly.
Yes, it really could.
And,
as a bit of a curve ball.
And I threw in disgust her before we started all this. While we research the idea of natural holograms.
That one is very odd.
But really what fascinated me about this and basically it's developing theory in theory in psychology that basically is giving more quote a modern language to the idea of thought form really.
So, essentially a top up.
Yes.
But it goes a step further that there's manifestations that are reflections of the living world, not necessarily the dead, but of, and not even necessarily of living beings like doppelgangers.
But that our interaction with reality creates a two dimensional, or actually three dimensional image out of our subconscious.
Well, apparitions or whatever we're seeing could actually be from our own subconscious a little bit what you were discussing with yoga.
And so it's a little bit of a twist and the idea that what we think of holograms like, you know, the image of Princess Leia Star Wars as a hologram or the one in the new Blade Runner Ruby.
It's all done with focused light and so forth. But theoretically, there's fair meaning with idea that this could happen.
And it's seen.
But without a focus of light, which to me is no different than when people see an apparition.
I think that's very true and it's help me everyone can help me, you're my only hope.
For the record, I can do that entire spiel.
I have no doubt.
I know.
But I won't. But in case anybody, you know, challenges me on it, I can, I can respond. But what we're essentially talking about is a is an organic projection or naturally occurring projection, which to me is a fascinating concept, I think, certainly
in terms of my study I haven't necessarily encountered a physical or visual projection.
But I think that a number of what we classify as poltergeist activities are projections from intense energetic projection from the subconscious.
And this to me this gets into really first of all really interesting territory, but also troubling territory not troubling to me, because I deal with duality and weird contradictory dichotomy.
And that's part of for fun. But for for individuals who are really locked into a particular theory or opinion based on activity. This can be presented as a, as a way of explaining away all sentient paranormal activity.
Right, and I'm not suggesting that.
But I think that, and I think the interesting aspect of this for this conversation is that the basically the barrier between our mind and the outside world
works exactly the same way as the surface of the mirror.
And I think that is a fascinating perspective that is is well worth consideration I think it's well worth consideration in the, the realm of investigation.
And it's, it's one of those areas. Again, you know, embracing the messiness of the duality that you take this into consideration.
And then also these other
aspects of of parallel as well. So it could be this, it could be that it could be something else entirely.
It or both.
Or both.
And I think that is really fascinating because it really begins.
An internal any mental dimensional shift in the way of analysis.
I think so, it, at least it's food for thought.
I think maybe now we shift to mirrors that are in those arts.
Which one would you like to start with.
Do you want to start with your, your own experience or say that for last.
We'll start with the land mansion we had the opportunity to visit the land mansion very informally, not as an investigator, just just just walked in.
And the land mansion is in the is in St. Louis.
And it was constructed in 1890 by the lymph family, the lymph brewery.
Beer, and prior to prohibition it was busy building St. Louis for decades.
And it actually was the biggest brewer, some people said the biggest brewer brewery in the country, certainly in St. Louis, and sir, son, and hyzer Bush, but they were Johnny come lately in the game.
And a lot of their success owed to the downfall of the lamps.
Yes, yes in the little family was clearly played by deep tragedy.
Yes.
And the house is open to the public, both as a boutique hotel, and also as a high end restaurant, and as well as a as an event venue. And they also have investigations there so it's increasingly well known for its paranormal activity.
Yes, it's gained quite a reputation the last few years.
And I would based on my limited time at the mansion, would sign up on that.
It was very intrepid and had the chance to go in there and
look around and go up to the second floor. And the second floor is the first the main floor for the bedrooms, and the bedrooms were many of the deaths took place.
There's a very at the time and mid morning, very odd, intense push pull energy and heaviness strong heaviness. And it was also notable there were a number of mirrors, some of them very oddly shaped one particularly long rectangular mirror that was in the second floor land on
the wall of the second floor landing some equally interesting family portraits on the wall that also could be described as a bit unsettling.
But overall my, my two impressions for the space was simply being impressed by its extraordinary beauty, and also a sense of, especially on the second floor feeling as though I was intruding.
That. I mean, especially considering the everything that happened in the house and clean the number of suicides.
I can understand that.
Yeah, it was, it was, it was a space that I was really excited about being in just because of its historicity and for its beauty. At the same time I kind of wanted to not be in the space in a very short amount of time.
And then it was on because the sense of unsettling, the unsettling sense tended to follow through the day.
Even if you left, even after I left. Yes.
And then, and this is the this is we get to the mirror part, because two o'clock the next morning I do think it was interesting it was in the two o'clock hour.
Because I don't really believe in the wishing hour but I did note the time that staying in an Airbnb in St. Louis.
Not within close proximity to the Lemp Mansion, but still within St. Louis so you're, you're in the same town.
And my dog
suddenly became incredibly agitated took between two to two 30 in the morning, barking at the mirror, which was interestingly enough placed right next to the bed became extremely agitated was was whining was barking, opening up was bouncing on the bed,
and then he would look at the mirror and then react as though he was seeing something and was doing it very consistently it was specifically focused on this mirror.
There was another mirror in the room that was on the door. But this large standalone
person size height mirror next to the bed was the one that he was reaching out about. And this was third, third or fourth night that he been there and then sleeping on the bed, and then in the bedroom at night.
And had never acted like this prior, and very unsettling. And I'm lying there half awake half asleep. Going, What are you doing. And then I start thinking about two things one.
One, how does the supernatural sky, my puppy act in regards to supernatural entities and or paranormal entities, and to the mirrors at the Lent mansion, and that weird sense of antagonism, but allure that was existing on the second floor.
And then I jumped out of bed and grabbed a quilt and threw it over the mirror.
Well, who knows he might have kept you for losing your soul. He might have and that would have been sad.
I, I rather, I seem to be rather attached to my soul and glad I still have it.
I mean, it's, it's definitely an interesting I mean it's definitely interesting and you know, unsettling because there doesn't seem to be a good alternate, alternate explanation for doing that.
You know, the way I'm approaching it at this point is it simply documented as a thing that occurred.
And I, on one hand I'm, I am hesitant to attach too much one way or the other, but I can tell you at 230 in the morning with sky barking at the mirror.
I'm highly uncharacteristically, and after the after having been in the mansion earlier.
My mind did put a lot of things together perhaps accurately perhaps inaccurately.
And I don't get creeped out too much, I did find that unsettling.
I probably would, you know, in that, in those circumstances, and you left it covered.
Yes, yes, I was there for another two days.
And I, for the record I was not about to take that blanket off.
I was, I, again, I just, I was, it felt like Gandalf with the volunteer.
You just don't know who might be watching, and was very unsettling.
Did not like that. And so, Saturday morning, I think it was.
Packed everything up, got ready to go and very expressly packed everything else to the truck.
Did my my last checks my last look under the bed my last looking closet for anything that might have rolled under there or I might have forgotten so on and so forth check the kitchen it was a lovely Airbnb for the record near older at 66.
It was Ted Drew's frozen custard.
But it was made sure that everything else was taken care of, ready to lock everything up.
Check the doors, etc. and everything in the truck took sky out put him in the truck, walked back in.
And pulled the blanket off immediately turned around and walked out of the room.
We are not spending time in front of this, whatever y'all are doing.
You're going to do it without me in the room.
Well, if nothing else.
You empathize with people who've had experiences with mirrors.
Absolutely. Absolutely. And I think that's very important. I think that this is, again, and this, this goes across the board with anyone who's had paranormal experiences.
One's personal experience is one's personal experience, and that may be very unsettling.
But the experiences you're not and you and I both had experiences it's were very clearly outside of ourselves. True, and, and that happens and and your story actually makes me think of experience I've had not quite as dramatic, but at a historic
time in the job one area that we used to do investigations at. It's not open for investigations at this point, because it's being used as a private home again.
The john wise house and beautiful Victorian, and twice family were sort of rads to riches situation and made a lot of money in the mining in the area.
And beautiful beautiful parlor that is probably the size of the.
My front parlor living room and dining room together at least or more.
Wow.
Beautiful antique mirror that contemporaneous to the house being built, built about 1890.
That is about 10 feet tall.
Maybe even 12 feet tall, and probably six feet wide.
Very heavy wooden frame.
And there were, we would have people who going through the room or so forth, would say that they saw a girl dancing in the mirror, and would turn, and you know of course no one's there.
I never saw the girl, but I have been in front of it and seen movement that seem to be contained in the mirror.
Really explain that one.
And I always had the feeling when in that room, I did not want my back to that mirror.
Right I can't really explain the reason for it because I absolutely love the marriage, absolutely gorgeous.
But I was fine, as long as I, as long as my back wasn't to it.
So what do you, what do you make of that just anecdotally of that phenomena or experientially.
I do think there was some sort of energy around the mirror.
And, you know, I guess another aspect of this is that particularly
a silver mill mirror.
And this is a very large one with glass
current.
If it's silvered current won't pass through it.
I don't know if it could be some sort of electrical phenomena around it.
That seems to make it a focal point.
I do think that there were two different times over the years that I saw move movement in the mirror that there was no there was no, no one else around and it wasn't me moving.
First time I just chopped it up to trick of the eye. Second time it was like, wait a minute, I've seen that before.
But it wasn't formed to where I could say it looked like a person moving or anything it was the sense of moving.
The house also
was known to people see movement in other areas in the house as well catch a lot of movement and shadow man a hat man actually was caught on video in the house, actually moving through
the mirror.
And through the room that the mirrors in, but on that when it was caught it was on the opposite side of the room but I don't know.
Wow.
It's neat to contemplate. It is also.
There is as there have been with so many of the things we've talked about tonight.
It is unsettling. Yes, and and I'm not particularly superstitious about mirrors, even with any or anything that that is the that is the one mirror that at times I was unsettled by even though I absolutely love it, because it's gorgeous,
but can't explain that one.
Then of course there there's there's the, the, the tail well before we get to sort of the more famous buildings. One other one to discuss is actually a location that we do investigations at an event that your house, and
I'll give you a disclosure this did not happen while I was there anything but the owner told me about it.
And happened. A few months ago, she and some friends were there, and a couple of her friends decided to do an EVP session.
And, as you know, it is full of antiques.
And the owner's done a wonderful job curating.
Yes.
And she's got a mirror in the parlor that and in fact she said I don't know anything about it she she bought it at an antique stores has no idea.
She's I'm not even sure that it's really that all it's my guess it's probably from the 40s or 50s so it's not like it's, you know, 150 years old that kind of thing.
But she said they were sitting there and while they're doing this she was kind of almost spacing off, getting bored.
And she's watching. She's seeing opposite the mirror. And she notices that the mirror.
It's turning black.
And then, and then she sends me one that she's like an hour later, you know after they're done everything she goes back in and sits in the same position and it's reflecting fine.
And it's not even that was just colored, or I think that the entire surface.
What tarnished black.
And there is more associated with that.
There is it's the Lord tends to say that that would indicate the presence of either an evil witch or a malevolent spirit or something.
Which, you know, certainly have not encountered there, but certainly can't explain it either I mean certainly some things happen there that are hard to explain, including a vacuum cleaner running that's not plugged in.
Like that.
Yeah.
Very very unclear. I mean the the house is haunted. That's, yes. And certainly some of our experiences I know we went in, you I know.
We know we went in and
pushed back on Noah pretty hard.
Yeah.
It did.
That was in it and you know, Noah's Noah's one of those blessed or unfortunate souls that highly active locations tend to push back on him pretty hard at the moment.
They change the time to.
Yeah, but that's not uncommon with adolescents.
No, it's not.
It does tend to happen more to adolescents so yeah definitely there's activity there and some that makes sense and some that's a little harder to explain like vacuum cleaner in the mirror I can't really explain either one of the rationality so
yeah, I guess. Yeah, those are those are interesting combinations of course and Noah having an interesting experience at the ballhouse which was not dissimilar to his experience at the Kendrick house.
That's true. That's true. I forgot about that.
Basically splitting headache that would end the second he stepped out of the building.
And in candidness I tend to at times,
have a physical reaction in a location that seems to correlate with how someone passed, you know.
Yes.
In the sense of not being able to breathe with someone that had a breathing problem or, you know, pain in an area, correlate into an injury etc so physical reactions do happen.
They do. And they do.
And that's occupational hazard of our work.
It is, it is.
Now then we,
you know, of course, there's a lot of buzz with the Crescent Hotel be, you know, as one of the most haunted places in America it certainly has.
It has benefited from paranormal television and documentaries over the last 20 years with its reputation.
But it does in founded.
Well founded, but it has its own mirror story.
And that one. I'm less familiar with I'm familiar with a number of the hauntings.
Yeah.
With the, the crime.
I, and I mean I've not experienced it or anything but I you know the story goes is that the image of a woman is seen in the lobby mirror.
Interesting.
I, I, I'm still fascinated by the bat owl, I was too busy looking at the bat owls.
It's interesting to hear the lobby.
But I love the Crescent Hotel is built in 1886.
And a very had an extremely varied history.
Certainly as a Victorian and warrior era hotel as a girl's school as a pseudo hospital for cancer patients to go to die.
And the hotel was typically locked away in the servants quarters, screaming in agony for a short period of time and then late 1930s early 1940s before the owner was parted off to the penitentiary for mail fraud, because they couldn't get him.
And it's, it's, it is a fascinating place, one of the most beloved experiences that I ever had was at the Crescent Hotel, and it was because it was me and it freaked me out for about a year and a half and then since then I've been back more than a dozen times
trying to replicate it to see what would happen and it's been very peaceful since then.
But, and in part, you weren't.
You weren't expecting it and as I recall you weren't very familiar with the haunted lore of the building at that time.
Not at all. I was what I had no, no knowledge of the hardest aspects and this was 2008.
So, it was, and I wasn't paying any attention to ghost shows. So, no, I had no clue.
But I do know that I'm standing directly over my left shoulder on the sky bar balcony, and that person was not happy with my presence.
That it happens, it happens sometimes.
And most of the time ghosts seem to like me okay, or just
extraordinarily ambivalent to my presence which I'm fine with.
And, but in the same sense, coming back to the reference to horses.
I'm standing in a barn full of horses, I'm standing in a corral full of horses. I want them to be ambiguous to my presence.
You know, and I approach, I approach most things in the paranormal and the normal that way.
Yes.
And
And who knows, there's a wide variety of reasons that whomever or whatever it was on the balcony hated my guts but something about me, you didn't like.
But you didn't see anything in the mirror.
Did not see anything in the mirror, did not see anything over my left shoulder and trust me I would.
But whatever was there was so absolutely terrifying that I was scared to get into the elevator, and instead ran down the stairs.
You mean you ran.
I hurried.
Okay.
You power watch.
My heart rate was very elevated before I even got to the stairs.
That's fair.
Whatever it was.
I am confident saying it was not my subconscious.
And I'm also confident in saying that initiated a fight or flight response.
And that that does happen occasionally not often. I mean, at least not often for me.
But it can happen.
And then another example of haunted or magical mirror in the Ozarks is that one of our favorite locations, the Coleman theater in Miami, Oklahoma.
Yes, Coleman theater.
Absolutely Gordon's location. I recommend you check it out. It's a route 66 stop and built 1929.
And fascinating.
Fascinating structure, lots of history of the location before 1929, as well.
And with that, I am still taken by the Spanish colonial revival exterior and the Versailles inspired interior.
Thank you, Mr. Coleman.
Yes.
Yes, George Coleman made a statement and and and then so it's seemingly well.
I will recall the first time that our producer Alex was in there he he actually stopped and said I I've never been in a building like this since I was at Versailles.
Well, that's not a coincidence.
It's extraordinary. And, and if memory serves the the mirror lore that's associated with the Coleman is in the green room.
Yes.
You recall, when you're in the green room.
There's a gold guilt framed mirror on the wall.
And very, very nice mirror very attractive.
Not huge.
I'd say maybe three feet by two, roughly, maybe slightly larger.
And a number of people over the years I've not had any it's, I've not had any experience with the mirror, but a number of people over the years have had the experience of looking into the mirror and seeing the reflection of a ballerina.
Yes.
Yes. And then turn around and no one's there.
Which is, it's very interesting, I, there's a lot of activity that associated with the green room and it's, it is in the basement underneath the stage.
And I have every reason to be unsettled or creeped out by the space for the record and I've granted I've been there with, you know, in groups I haven't been down there by myself to just hang out.
It, for me personally, it has not been unsettling.
It really has. There's been, I think, one time over the years that I've been in there that kind of had a heavy feeling, but nothing extraordinary for my experience.
And again I haven't seen the ballerina. I.
Every time I go down there I hope I do, but I haven't.
Actually I, I'm more fascinated by the mirrors and lobbying myself.
True, true. Very large years.
Yeah.
And not necessarily haunted but then you you add to that, that actually pretty much opposite one of the large mirrors in the lobby is the portrait of George Coleman, who built the theater.
And it's under glass.
It's a photo.
And his eyes follow you.
Yeah.
There's.
And of course you've got the glass of over the photo which is a mirror is a mirror.
Yeah, it is a little unsettling how that photo follows you.
There's, and of course, one of the notable spirits haunting the common theater is George Coleman.
Yes, yes.
Yes, and I do believe I have heard him.
Complaining about the phone ringing.
There is a trail of energy in that lobby space.
There is and, and, to be honest, I've seen shadow men through their multiple times, including in the lobby area as well as coming down the stairs from the mezzanine.
And then there's been various people who have been said they were pushed on those stairs.
It's.
To me it just is you know based on my experiences with a with a with a space.
The, the green room basement feels very ordinary does not feel like space that is out of space.
No, it doesn't.
But the lobby does.
It does, and everywhere where there, there's, you have either, you know, people have been pushed on the stairs, where shadow men are seeing George Coleman's portrait, and are all spots that are reflected from the mirrors.
Yes, they are. It's just there is a there's a lot of energy movement throughout that space. It's not necessarily negative.
No, but there is definitely movement.
And I find that really interesting. Actually one of one of the photos of us for Darko's arcs is taken on the second floor of the lobby. That's true. That's true.
And many of our social media a lot. It's used quite a bit for advertising the show and so forth so. And actually I think there was a mirror.
There's mirrors all over.
Yes, and, and, and, and appropriately so it's based on beside but yeah, very fascinating.
And I but I love the space.
I do, I do.
And I definitely will risk the mirrors again to go back so I'll be to well either for an investigation or presentation, or just go to see something that's playing at the Coleman.
Exactly, and definitely recommend checking that out. And they give daily tours, and not even scheduled if you just go in they will take you through all four stories, so.
Yeah.
Yes, it's definitely worth it.
That'd be a good place to to end.
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