What's that at my bed?
It's spooky and jooky. I'm pretty sure it's dead kid's coming.
It's way Wait a minute, Hey, I go hi ros dressed.
Hey boo, it's me Roz. Welcome to part two of my conversation with Greg and Dana Newkirk. Oh my god, people went wild for this episode last week. I heard from so many people that just loved a great feedback and and it was worth the wait. I mean, I love them. I love them so much. They are so cool, they're funny, and they know their stuff. And so today
we have a little bit more of the conversation. We're gonna be talking about eBay dolls, one of my favorite topics, and Hellier and also Phenomena Con which is their online paranormal conference, which is happening this weekend.
So please be there.
We'll talk more about it later on in the episode.
I'll be there. Okay.
Let me give you a little bit of an intro here. I was looking through paranormal news and guess what, Courtney Cox has a ghost story. In celebrity paranormal News, Courtney Cox recently said an interview that she has a ghost story. She has a new TV show coming out called Shining Veil, and it sounds like a great idea. So the show Shining Veil is about this family. She's the wife, the mother, I believe, and bad things are happening and she can't tell if she's either depressed or possessed.
I don't know. I found it interesting anyway.
So she was recently promoting the TV show and she was asked by a reporter from Entertainment Tonight, have you ever had an experience? She said that she lived in a house where a EPs delivery person brought her something and was like, Oh, who's that behind you? And she was like, well, there's no one behind me. And that was one of her ghost stories that happened, but she said she doesn't want to talk about it because she's
afraid that the ghost will hear her. And also and then she also reveals in the interview, Oh, I'm in England right now and I just had a paranormal experience the other night. So the ghost lover. I love Courtney Cox. I actually just watched Scream a couple of weeks ago, and I loved it so much. God, I thought it was it was everything I wanted from a Scream movie. But Anyway, I just thought it was interesting and I'm adding her to my list of future dream guests. Courtney Cox.
She's got the stories we now know it.
Okay.
I also found this article that is saying that there's a new study about people that believe in the paranormal, and I'm like, are they coming for us? It sounds like we have some haters here in our mists.
Okay. This one.
This article's from Psychology Today. It says our paranormal believes a result of lazy thinking.
keV said this before.
I have always before all the other things I identify as, I've always identified first and foremost as lazy. So you might have You might be onto something here. Basically, what it's saying is that.
Okay.
So in twenty twenty one, or is the New York Time Times bestseller called Noise colon a flaw in human judgment, And in this book, it says belief in ghost astrology and extrasensory perception ESP is associated with lower cognitive reflection test scores, implying that belief in paranormal phenomena may result
from failure to engage in an adequate level of analytic thinking. However, a new Cross cultural study published last week in Frontiers in Psychology, which I guess is some kind of publication, suggests that this is a case of correlation without causation,
and that it may be culturally mediated. So cognitive reflection tests, also known as CRT, so that measures a person's ability to respond to a problem by rejecting the first incorrect answer that springs to their mind and then engaging their analyt reasoning skills to find the less obvious but correct solution, so it says. In twenty twelve, a study by someone named Gordon Pennycook showed an inverse correlation between scores on
the CRT and belief in paranormal phenomena. So, according to his findings, quote, analytic individuals have decreased levels of supernatural belief because they are more likely to scrutinize ideas, detect such violations, and unbelieve them. However, last week a group of researchers published a series of cross cultural studies that undertook a similar comparison of cognitive reflection and paranormal belief, but produced results that call pennycook at All's explanation into question.
So they noticed that most studies examining the association between cognitive style and and people that believe in the paranormal or jump to that have been conducted exclusively with what they call weird, which stands for Western educated, industrialized, rich, and democratic. Okay, we're going to talk about the word weird for a moment later on in this episode, and
that is not what I'm referring to PS. So they're saying only ten percent of the two hundred and eighty seven participants in Penny Cook at Owl's study were from regions other than North America and Europe, and one hundred percent of their study participants gave English as their primary language. They also noted that a previous study in which Japanese participants who self reported having an analytics thinking style were
more likely to have paranormal beliefs. So they're using this as reasons to explore the relationship between CRT scores and paranormal beliefs outside the Western and English speaking worlds. So, sticking with the same group that is doing these studies, they conducted several studies to measure cognitive reflection and paranormal
beliefs in both English speaking and Japanese speaking populations. So the results for their English speaking subjects were similar to the one that Penny Cook did, which is an inverse correlation between CRT scores and paranormal belief However, when CRT scores and paranormal beliefs among Japanese subjects were compared, there was no such correlation found. So it would seem that what they found is that paranormal beliefs are not a violation of Japanese cultural norms quite as much as they
are to Western peoples. So yeah, it really seems like it has a lot to do with society cultural influences. Of course, I'm always talking about religion or upbringing. That has a huge part, because those seeds are planted in your mind that that stuff could be possible. I think also if you're like, you know, if you discover I don't know, paranormal podcasts or movies or books or whatever, then you then you would have the possibility of that stuff out there, and you wouldn't just be like, oh,
that was just in my head. Anyway, moving on, I don't know, I'm always thinking about skeptics. Skeptics in a way, I guess the word isn't necessarily skeptic. I think that that word gets thrown around a lot. But people that strictly reject the idea of the existence of paranormal phenomena, I'm always so curious about them, and obviously I talk to a lot of them. Sometimes I have them on
this show a little bit. Actually, I don't think I've ever had anyone on this show because I can't interview someone that's like, Nope, that's not true, Nope, that's stupid, Nope, that's fake. I mean I've tried, and I've had to stop and go just so you know, like I believe in this the people that listen to the show at least have an open mind to hear about it. I think a large majority of them do believe in the
possibility of this stuff. So like, don't insult us and to insult our intelligence by telling us that we are stupid for thinking that this stuff is possible. Of course, it always comes down to it's fun.
Why not.
We're not hurting anybody. I mean, it is interesting because when I started this podcast, and still to this day, I don't know anything about any of this stuff. I just like to talk about it and I like to learn more and more. But when I especially started doing this podcast, I was admittedly the kind of person that would think that everything ever was a ghost. And I have in some ways retroactively debunked certain things that I
thought were paranormal in my life. Nothing too major, just little things where I'm like, oh, maybe that was that and not a ghost. But I think that from having all of these conversations and going out and experiencing looking for a ghosts and talking to professionals in this field, it has certainly given me a more analytic mind set when it comes to the paranormal, and it has given me options of rather than jumping to conclusions right away.
I think that is true, and I don't know, maybe you found that too from listening to people's stories and experiences. I think it's a good thing. Of course, we've talked before. It's healthy to be skeptical, even you know you can believe in this stuff and be skeptical. I think that's smart. No, we want, we want to note for damn sure that what we're talking about is a ghost as much as we can.
I don't know.
I just thought it was interesting to read that in a psychology a publication that was psychology Today. It's interesting to me that people look into this stuff and it says that you know, they they throw astrology in there. I like the idea of looking into people's analysis of things being paranormal or not. I'm not I'm never interested in like, well, if you believe in ghosts, then you're stupid, or like whatever like that is that does nothing for me.
I kind of feel like, unintentionally I am doing an informal research study with this podcast, because you might notice I often do ask people what did their family teach them about this stuff? Religion, cultural beliefs on this stuff, and also, okay, so what did you think when you first saw that ghost in your at the foot of your bed? Did you think it was a human? Did you think like I'm always trying to to almost survey what different people think when they're in these situations based
on a lot of this stuff that is being studied. Anyway, I'm rambling. I thought it was interesting. Okay, so let's get into part two of this conversation.
Now.
I will say it's very rare, but this week on Patreon, I do not have a bonus clip from my conversation with Greg and Dana, but I decided to record essentially an ad free podcast of me talking and learning about paranormal stuff. And I put that on my Patreon second tier this week, and I had so much fun doing it, and I think I might just like do it more. I loved it because I want to learn things and
it's fun to find the humor in it. And so I wanted to look up things religious quote unquote miracles, unexplainable things that people have credited toward, particularly Catholic miracles, and unexplained phenomenal like stigmata and the mysterious side of supernaturally Catholic beliefs. So I looked up a lot of that stuff when I read about it, and I thought I was making myself laugh. I had a fun time
doing it, and I hope you would enjoy it. So it's about over forty minutes ad free, just me talking about that. Who knows, maybe I'll do it every single week from now on. I'm not sure we'll see. But let's get into the rest of my conversation with Greg and Dana Newkirk. So the last time we talked to them, just to recap. Of course, if you haven't heard part one,
go back and listen to part one. But they were telling us the incredible story about the catskills Crone, the Haunted Object, and it leads us into this part of the conversation.
So I hope you enjoy.
Here is me talking to Greg and Dana Newkirk, Part two on with the show. Okay, but all that being said, what about eBay dolls and haunted.
Oh my god, don't get me started.
You know, I have this thing where I'm obsessed with eBay dolls, and on my Patreon I do a thing where I critique their outfits and.
I love it.
I have an obsession with eBay Haunted Doll world, and I personally feel very comfortable, confident, and free to kind of make fun of the dolls because I don't think that most of them are legit at all.
But I mean, what do you guys think.
I'll put it this way. Every time we've delt with a case where there are people who claim to have a haunted object, they only ever respond one of two ways. Yeah, there's only two ways they respond. I've never seen anything else in a case that I believed they either will never part with it. They have like a bizarre connection to it, and they would never part with it for any lot of money.
There's like a hyper fixation on it that borders on like on health red plash.
Yeah, or they want you to take it, they will pay you to take it, or they don't want anything to do with it. They're so scared they want to throw it. And I've opt people from throwing it and throwing things in fires, from throwing things la favor. They want nothing to do with it. So when I see someone who goes, I have this incredibly haunted artifact and you can own this for five hundred dollars, I'm like, Oh, you're.
A scam art Yeah.
Sure, it's complete horseshit. There's no way, and there's a It's funny because there's there's this fun, super fun scam that I see some paranormal museums do sometime is they have their psychics quote unquote go to thrift stores and put their arms out over the dolls and then they will feel the energy and they'll find a haunted doll.
And then because the psychic finds the haunted doll, now they have a new haunted doll and they've just got they just make up this whole backstory and everything for it.
Oh, the backstories are the best part they're always so specific these yes, yes.
They are, especially the eBay ones.
They're like so like, you have this incredible detail about this.
Oh, this is the this is Amy and she's gluten free and that much.
To watch Judge Judy yes day, it's like, or do you like to watch Judge Judy as the dolls sits next to you?
Exactly? One of our favorite, one of my favorite favorite.
Exactly what you're gonna say, it's the greatest story ever we give.
So we go. We'll give lectures on the idea of hauntings and haunted objects and things like that. And one of the things that we'll do is we'll go through some of our favorite finds on eBay, because we always have like a thing where it's like, don't buy haunted dolls on eBay unless you hate money. They're just throwing it away. So there's there's haunted dolls, there's all kinds of stuff di big boxes. Don't get me started on those. But one of my favorite ones was a haunted ring
and this ring. If you bought this ring and you wore this ring, it would summon the spirit of Craig the bisexual werewolf lover. And there's a picture of Craig that's on this eBay account. And the funniest thing about it is we gave that. We've been giving that lecture for a while and people always laugh because it's just it's just absurd the level of detail or to even think that wearing this ring would summon uh, you know,
the the werewolf Sucubis. Craig turns out. Our friend Connor Habib goes, oh, He's like, I you know, I worked, I worked in the adult entertainment industry. I know, Craig. We could actually set you up by that ring, and then we'll make a little video where you put the ring on, Craig appears, and then we'll just have a jump cut to Craig appearing in the scene. So I would love to at some point, but I unfortunately have not met Craig.
Yeah, we need an intro to Craig. We gotta make this happen.
Well, I do live versions of this podcast in person here in LA and.
Let's get Craig.
Yeah.
Well, usually what I do is, I, oh God, I hate to admit that this is fake, because I think people really know that it's they believe in it. But I make a fake eBay ad of a doll for sale, which is really just a doll I buy at a thrift store, and then I bring I act like I bought the doll, and then I bring the doll, and then I have a local improv actor of some sort behind with a microphone behind the stage all the doll, and.
Then I interviewed about their stories.
That is incredible.
I love I love the detail backstory Haunted Doll ex or e Day.
They're so good, the absurd amount of detail, because all I want to know is, like, where's the recordings of her telling you this?
Please?
We could change history.
But the crazy thing is that it's like then you click on the seller and they have like fifty of these dolls. Yes, and it's like similar stories kind of. I mean, I have a lot of respect for the fact that they take all this time to like really write these stories. And sometimes the stories are like long likes and paragraphs.
They're always from like an old I was cleaning out an old witch is a state that's in so many of them.
My favorite, also a kind of like similar thing is of the Haunted Doll world on TikTok is an incredible thing because it's just people interviewing their haunted dolls, like doing like EVP sessions, so like electronic voice. When I'm like ghost hunting with their haunted dolls to ask them like who killed Marilyn or Marilyn Monroe like.
That, You're just, oh my god, it's incredible.
Yeah, maybe the doll will know, like, well.
They'll know, oh yeah, that's a dull.
So when you guys have like a bunch of haunted objects in a room, how do you know what activity is coming from which one?
You know? I don't think you really have to look very hard. I mean, I think, you know, my my personal view on ghosts. People are always saying, you know, ghosts are here because they have they have unfinished business. I I think that they natural. If there's something that has some something to say, they'll find a way to say it. They'll find a way to let you know.
And I think also like when it comes to the objects, some of them there there's like distinct activity, like different types of activity that you'll you'll notice sort of with them.
And then and then and stuff happens when something new comes into the environment. So like with the Krone, we we knew right away, oh this thing is trying to tell us something. So it's not I mean there's it's there's not a really clear cut and dry way. It's just I feel like if it has a message, it lets you know.
And one of the things that we do also is you know, like because it's a majority of the like not all of the objects are in the same room. Some of them we keep separate, some of them just shouldn't be with other objects, or we kind of like every object is its own case, so each one gets
like its own treatment specifically. But one of the things that we do is like in the main space where we have a majority of the objects, I'll I consider it like energetic hygiene, and so I'll come in and like clean cleanse the area or or just do something to kind of clean the area out a little bit.
And that's mainly just because the one thing that we notice more often than not specifically when you have this many weird things in one space is the more the it the energy is allowed to kind of root itself in the space, the more you get weird things happening. So though the longer it's allowed to kind of stagnate in the.
Space, let that seed grow.
Yeah, you sort of just have to come in and like cleanse it and kind of create a new kind of energetic environment for everything to coexist together in.
Yeah, okay, I could see that. That makes sense.
You and your roommates, all of your roommates. Well, I'm looking at the time, you guys. Okay, I want to talk about other things.
Hellier, Hey, we're here for you. Let's keep going.
You guys, this is so fun. Okay, hell youre. I love it so much. You guys are like, you guys are like straight up investigators, like take away the paranormal as well, Like you guys are like the first time I watch Hellyer, Okay, I'm a big found footage horror fan, and every time I watch found footage, I'm always like, this is the hardest genre because like, these people would have to be such good actors, and like, if I didn't know any better, if I was watching hell here,
I'd be like, who are these actors? This is incredible, like just because of the way that the storyline progresses, and it like really feels like you're watching a movie, but and of course it's not. I mean, it's like it's so much there's such a narrative and it's like it's not just like a ghost hunting thing or something, no offense to any of that. It's it's it's just different. It's like a full like storyline. Like I don't know, it's it's really incredible. I just I think it's so great.
I'm always happy to hear that. It's funny because there's so many people who do think we're actors. They think that Hellire is like a Blair Witch Project type of thing.
We're the worst actors on the face of the planet. Like I can't even imagine.
Oh, we had to do recreations for the chron and we had to reshoot them because we're such terrible actors that Karl had to like you had to like shoot it sort of fuzzy and out of focus and like just on our lower half.
Yeah, like don't show our faces at all because we just like we're we are so bad at it.
There are there's tons of people who.
Tons of people, which is like, it's kind of funny because I guess, I mean sure, I guess I tried to take it as a compliment. But a lot of the a lot of the credit there go to Carl who's our director of photography and the editor, he's able to.
He has a really difficult job when it comes to Hellier, especially because he's just taking hundreds and hundreds of hours of footage from like over seven years and having to make them coherent for the viewer, because like, we could sit and spend all day, but when you have you know, forty five minutes an episode. Yeah, he's just really really good at it and has a really great artistic eye. And Hellier does this really interesting thing where, you know, Carl decided to shoot it as a film, so it
doesn't look like other paranormal television shows. It's shot with like cinema anamorphic lenses. It has a score. We actually have someone who scores it.
It has oh my god, the theme song has been in my head for the past few years.
Right, so great, it's so good, And all of those things kind of combined to do something I think is very important for people who want to experience the paranormal themselves. It brings your mind into this liminal place where you know that what you're watching is is real. It's a it's a documentary, but it looks and feels and sounds like a film, and so your mind goes into that liminal spot where anything is possible, and I think it really does. You know, there's a lot of subtleties in
Hellier and a lot of things baked into Hellier. There's the idea that we're doing this big ritual and that the people who watch it become part of that ritual. And the countless people contact us all the time telling them, telling us that things are happening in their lives because of Hellier, because they've watched Hellier. I can't speak to that very much, but I do think that there is there's magic in that series and the way that people experience it.
Well, what's the for you know, like, what's the I guess elevator pitch or whatever people say, you know, what's the what's the TV Guide version of what it is? For anyone that has never seen that?
Holy shit, can you imagine a lot?
I know, it turns into a whole.
It's like I always joke that it's a show about goblins. That's not about goblins.
Yeah.
It starts off with us investigating one of the strangest emails we've ever gotten, this case or this sky and in this tiny, old, dying coal town of eastern Kentucky, Hellier says that there's these little beings, these little goblins, coming out of a mind shaft on the edge of
his property. They're tapping on his windows at night. They're scaring his children, and they stole his dog, and that this enigmatic figure by the name of Terry Wrist told him to contact me and my childhood ghost hunting team, Like the there's no reason to ever contact us because we we just look like kids who really like Jackass and went ghost hunting with medieval weapons.
Like it's silly, now, Pa, coming from the drag world, hearing any pun name always gets me excited, and Harry Wrist, I'm like, that sounds like an incredible drag king.
But yeah, I love I love it when people email.
This happens.
We get these emails once or twice a month where somebody will email us and I love this. This is great because in a way, hell Here is very much like a crowdsourced investigation. But sometimes someone will email us and we'll go, oh my god, did you know that if you say Terry Wrists really fast, it's terrorist. Yeah, yeah, wow, I think you just cracked.
We got oh I figured it out right away. But well then I turned into something else later on. But yeah, yeah, okay, so sorry.
Well we as we as we go to explore this case, we find this connection to this very strange book that was released by ritual magician by the name of Alan Greenfield, who was a ufologist who became involved in the the ot O and Thelma, which is ritual magic based around principles that Alistair Crowley. I'm sorry, Crowley, I get a lot of flak for that Alistair crow espoused in things
like Book of the Law. There's a book called Secret Cipher of the Euphonous which is all about using ritual magic to investigate, summon, and repel extraterrestrial entities, ultra terrestrials. And it involves Injured Cold, it involves the Mothman, it involves goblins, all of that stuff, and it was a
very strange book. And then we start to slowly meet characters who are from this book, and every little step that we take ends up leading us further and further into this really strange place where by the end of season two spoiler alert, we've gone from investigating goblins to summoning old gods with magic rituals in caves below Kentucky.
I want to say that at some point in the second season, I think.
You guys cover this for a sec.
The idea kind of going back to what we were talking about with like magic having to do with cryptids and that sort of a thing. And I remember when I first started learning about Alistair Crowley that that he was doing work in Lockness, and then it made me think, like, I wonder if that's if that is, you know, a manifestation of something, you know, if he created the Lockness Monster or whatever, and so I mean, what are your thoughts on all that?
Oh, I know what?
That he was doing a ritual at the Buluskin House.
I think it was the Abremlin ritual, which is like a really intense, very long ritual that you know, there's a fantastic film that is sort of gives you an idea of what the Abremlin rituals like. It's called a Dark Song, and I highly highly recommend it. It's incredible, it's beautiful, it's scary, but it's the best depiction of ritual magic in a fictional film that I've ever seen.
But it was the what he didn't He wasn't able to finish the ritual to completion and then shortly thereafter the Monster. I am a big believer in the idea that often.
He tore a hole in reality, like that he manifested something into existence. I don't know, but it is an interesting coincidence.
So, Hellier, is there a third season where you guys at.
Yeah, there, I mean, I think it's a matter of when, not if. The first two seasons came out in the same year, which is crazy, uh, And you know, we have a lot of ideas about where it's going to go. We have ideas about who we still need to talk to, things that we still need to do, rituals we need to complete, and yeah, I just I I don't think
Helly is the thing that really stops. You know, we can kind of try to unnaturally put a cap on it, but we'll definitely continue it as far as it wants to take us, because I don't think that it's done yet. I think there's still work to do and there's still I mean, my own personal opinion on it. And this is the fun thing is we all have our own
ideas about what this means. But I think what you're watching and Hellier is you're watching you are watching an initiation of people becoming better magicians or becoming magicians at all. And at the same time, there are so many viewers who are becoming magicians alongside of us. And I don't think that journey is done.
I love it so much. I truly I tell everybody about it. I just think it's it's so fun and it's it just it covers so much ground paranormally and and I do you always appreciate that, like, uh, intersection
of different ideas of the paranormal. I mean doing things like you know, the God Helmet and the Estence method and like, you know, stuff that's more traditionally ghost hunty as you're in you know, talking about hypnosis and UFOs and like it's just it's all of it and in such a cool way that makes sense.
And yeah, that's so it's always really nice to hear that, because that tends to be like one one of the things that people will like hyper focus on that they hate about it.
Well, it's like, I don't want to sound. I don't want to sound this is going to come off. I'm trying to think of how how the best way to stay is out offending somebody hellier requires you to do homework. Sure, and not everyone like people who watch like traditional paranormal television. I watch traditional paranmal television. We appear on it all the time. But they you have your hand held and
you're told what to think and what to believe. By traditional paranormal television, there's always there's a three act narrative structure that you know you've got. The first act sets up the problem, the second act is the investigation. The third act is telling the client how to fix the problem. It's solved, it's done. That's not how it works, ever, Yeah,
in any paranormal case, it doesn't work that way. Yeah, And so Hellier requires you, you know, you get out of it what you decide the work, you know, what kind of work you decided to put into it.
It was a big deal, I think for us to have it feel really authentic and to have it feel like the person the people watching it are another a fellow investigator with us, because we wanted everyone to see our dead ends. We wanted people to see moments when we, you know, were the theory we were running with came up against a brick wall and we just had to kind of abandon it. At that point, we wanted it.
To feel really real and and give.
You know, a paranormal investigat and high strangeness investigation, like an authentic chance at, you know, being in front of people, because it's so strange and so wild. And I think part of what is great about it is when you when you show it in its authenticity it I think it really resonates with people in a big way.
And and you know, Hellier, it's a lot of things, but it's a show about reading books.
Yeah, it also.
And I love that people have stacks of books after they watch it, and they can come up with their own ideas. And we try really hard not to tell anyone what to believe. Like we we just decide for yourself how you think this works. We have our own opinions. We're never gonna we don't want to hold anyone's hand. We don't want to tell someone what to believe. We want them to have your own adventures and read the books and decide what you think.
Yeah, well you certainly recommend a lot of like other things to check out and other things to look into. And I really appreciate that too, because you guys talk about stuff that I'm like, what like this is some you guys are weird, like like really getting deep into this ship. Like it's not just it's it's like advanced learning, Like there's a.
Lot of but it's like such a good way.
You know.
It's like things that I didn't even know about yet. And I feel like I talk so much about all this stuff all the time, and I don't know the thirty seventh parallel, Like I was like getting like all into it.
It's great.
Ah man, that's great. That's that's the best. Calling us weird is the best compliment you give us.
I always say it's the opposite of boring. I mean, opposite of weird is boring being a good thing to be exactly. But wait, I was just gonna ask you, well, I was just thinking, like, when you a traditional paranormal show, it's and it's understandable when you know about production and stuff, but they only have a few days and so you
can accomplish so much. And that's what's so cool about this one is that you guys and years and yeah, sometimes that's you know what it takes, and that's how it should be.
I don't want this to sound dismissive of paranormal television, but this is our real life. This We don't turn this off when the cameras are off, Like this is what we do for a living, Like this is this, We live this, We experienced this. The amount of a psychological pain that Hellier has caused us is unbelievable.
We are going to.
Have to go to therapy because of because of it. It's a real it's real. This is where this is. This is our lives. This is where we live. The reason Dana and I even are together is because we ran rival ghost hunting teams as kids. We hated each other. We've we've been involved in this for forever, so it's always you know, I love it. I think that you know,
can't be Paranormal television is awesome. It's great, but it's also kind of frustrating when people believe that, like Mountain Monster is legitimately fighting Bigfoot every week, you know, Like it's I.
Think also it's it's like it's just nice to.
Have an alternative too, you know what I mean, Like it's nice to sort of like have a kind of panormal content or TV for everybody. So if you're you know, if you are a fan of like traditional ghosts, hunting shows. They exist in they're out there, and now there's, you know, an alternative for people who maybe want to dig their their you know, heels in a little bit and kind of embed themselves with a group of investigators. It's just
cool to have like that alternative. We could be that alternative.
I guess. We actually had the first season of Hellier in the Can for like a year before we decided to throw our hands up and release it ourselves, because every time we would take it to a network, they would say, well, you have to find goblins, like you're going to have to find goblins? Like what if we just blue sky in here? What if we went back and every episode was you finding a goblin in a different cave in a different state. That's not what it's about,
And how are you going to guarantee it? They're like, oh no, don't worry about it. The subtext is there for anyone who watches a lot of paranormal television, and it just didn't feel right to us. We were We just kind of threw our hands up, and I'm glad now that we self released it because it's done much better and been much more well received than I ever would have imagined if I'd listened to network executives about what people actually wanted.
Yeah, oh that's so cool. What is your inbox?
Like?
I mean, I can only imagine it is colorful. That has to be nightmare.
Yeah, it's it's a lot of like really great, uh and wonderful people having had their own incredible experiences, and then occasionally it's.
Like very very scary people.
Sure, but it's if anything, I think what is fascinating about it is how many people feel that it kind of that hell You're itself sort of is a great example for something that they felt in their own lives that they've never really had something to kind of point
as to a reference for. So I find that like more often than not, people are like I, I've experienced synchronosity storms like the ones that you guys experience in Hellier, and I didn't know how to explain that or I didn't know how to properly share that feeling with other people. And it kind of it's cool because it is it's nice even just for us to know that there are other people out there that are kind of that they
feel as if they're in that current. Because I like referring to it as a current and it feels like something that you're in. When you're really kind of going with the flow of of you know, trying to communicate with that phenomenon, there's there's a weirder vibe that you sort of feel and it's cool that, you know, there's so many people who've said this is what I feel sometimes, and it feels important. It feels mystical to me, and now I have a point of reference where I can go.
It's like this, you know, and that's that's a really cool thing. Yeah.
I mean when you guys get these emails that are like, there's goblins in my yard and like, how do you you know, how do you what's your credibility checklist or you know, I'm sure it's case by case, but I think I don't know.
I think that I mean, and Greg probably will have a different answer, But for me, I'm really always looking because I feel like at this point the you know, everyone jokes that like, you know, there's a hell you're drinking game and whenever we say synchronicities drink and we're like, you'll.
Dive out, you will do that.
But I really feel like.
For me, the synchronicities are are the guideposts. So they when I start seeing that popping up, like let's say someone contacts us and they're you know, they're they're having a similar experience or they they want us to come and investigate. I'm really looking for like synchronicities.
Around dates, words, sometimes the name of something that we've been very invested in and haven't told anyone about.
Yeah, and then you're like, Okay, well, there's no way that that person would have ever known that. And so those for me personally tend to be the things that I'm really looking for as far as kind of that you know that that idea of the phenomena going with look over here, like this is the direction you need to go into next. I sort of trust that it will put the right the right kind of things in front of us that will will recognize them right away.
Yeah, you let the phenomena guide your guide your hand. And there's other you know, there's other times when you know, you get really good at sniffing out sure you know, if someone's trying to pull one over on you, you kind of you kind of know, and there's questions you can ask that will get to the heart of that really quick and people's responses. How they respond is another way. And you know, like like I said earlier, our first instinct with every single thing is to try and give
people the tools to solve their own problems. I don't need to come in and play the hero and stoke my ego and you know, give you an exorcism or anything like that. That's not what we're about. We want to help you help yourself. And so we can give people advice and ideas on how to fix their own problems. And if that doesn't work, you know, the next step is, okay, well let's you know, maybe there is something we can do.
We don't like typically doing residential cases because there's you know, there's there's psychology issues there, there's I think in a lot of those cases they need to talk to a psychiatrist, and neither of us are psychiatrists. We don't have training in therapy or anything like that. And so I'm very aware of making someone's situation worse simply by being there. But you know, when it comes to like somebody has a haunted object or something and it's causing them distress,
we're happy to take it off their hands. That's easy to do, and most of the time, just getting rid of it solve the problem and we just make a little more room on our shelves and sometimes we get to experience something fascinating and document it. But yeah, it's it's always case by case because.
It's tough, like having an open mind of like, oh, well, you know, I like to believe, like sure, why couldn't this be possible? But like it gets to like a fine line sometimes where somebody comes to me with something and I'm like, I don't know if that yeah, that's well, it's really out there.
I think one of the easiest ways is to determine whether the person actually wants help, because sometimes someone just wants someone to confirm that they have a spooky ghost in their house, you know, because everyone wants to be special.
Yeah, and those situations are the most difficult ones where you can you can give every you can give someone kind of every explanation as to the weird things that are happening maybe in their houses or something like that, but the reality to the situation is they just want you to kind of validate the experiences that they are having, and those are tough because it's sort of like sometimes you will find like legitimate mundane answers, and they often
just kind of refuse them because they want to continue believing that, you know, it's not the pipes you know, contracting from heat and banging in your basement, that it's something else going on.
So those are tougher kind of situations.
But especially when it's dealing with like unresolved trauma. Yeah, you know, they want they want the orb in that photo to be Grandpa, and you don't want to say, well, that's a lens artifact. You know, it's it's it's difficult. And even if you tell these people like no, that's you know, I can tell you how this happens. You know, I can put you in touch with the photographer who can explain how this works and how there's water droplets in the air and when you use the flash they
show up on camera. But sometimes it's better to just say, if that brings you comfort, why do you need me to validate that?
You know?
Yeah, well, you guys, we should probably wrap it up soon, but we have got to talk about phenom when all gone.
Yeah, we're so excited you're gonna be there.
I will be there and I can't wait.
You know, this is my debut speaking at things, Is it really yeah? I mean obviously I've like done a billion things speaking to audiences and talking about ghosts and all that, but I never I feel legitimate.
You've not done a conference before, never feel We are so honored.
So thank you guys for giving me that.
Oh my gosh, thank you for giving us the honor of hosting you well, tell us what it is can't wait and what people can look forward to and how they find it and everything. Phenomena con is born of a pandemic a couple of years ago, when you know, our livelihood shut down. The livelihood of our friends shut
down too. You know, part of the way that we make money is going around the country and talking to people, and we're in a very fortunate position where we don't have to do that, but a lot of our friends have. They're not you know, they've got books they've got to sell, they've got things they've got to promote. And we got
bored not being able to go anywhere. So I said, let's try our best to bring the conference experience online, and we planned a three day event with we only ever invite people who we genuinely love and genuinely feel like they have something fun and interesting and new to say to people, and we put together this this amazing list and it just went it. It went off like gangbusters.
Everybody was so psyched on it because, you know, we didn't realize they're there's people who've never had the opportunity to attend a paranormal conference before. They've got maybe they have social anxiety, maybe they just don't have the funds, maybe they have to stay home and care for somebody. These people finally had the opportunity to attend something like this, and it was it was just so much fun. It
really replicated the conference experience. As far as I know, no one's ever done one before, an online paranormal conference, and so we kept it going and we're bringing it back for round three. It's happening at the end of the month, the twenty fifth through the twenty seventh. We host the whole thing through our Patreon page. It's free for people who are already members of our Patreon and if you're not, it's fifteen bucks. You can you can join for the weekend, you can leave when you're done
if you want. But there's tons of fantastic speakers on everything from voodoo to ufology to Bigfoot. Dana's going to talk about incorporating magic into paranormal investigation. I'm going to talk about egg Grigor's for fun and profit. There's all kinds of fun stuff and there's movie screenings that have to do with the paranormal. Uh. Yeah, it's gonna be great.
I'm really excited about it. But if people are curious about it, they can go to Patreon dot com, slash Para Museum, p a r A Museum and all the informations there.
And I'm gonna be giving a speech about like finding the fun and the funny and the paranormal and keeping it, you know, light, and finding the humor in it, which is hell yes, so important, and that was so much of like when I started this podcast, it's always been kind of the focus for me, is like, yeah, sure, there's like moments when when this stuff is so far from being funny, it's not even funny, but like, you know, so much of it, there's there's so much fun to
be had and and I've spent so many years watching people that I'm like, is this even.
Fun for you guys?
Right?
Sounds that miserable, Like come on, you're talking to dead people, you're talking to invisible you know, humans, like it's fun.
Yeah, you know.
One of the best pieces of advice I ever got. And I'm sorry, I don't remember where I heard this or who told this to me, but one of the best pieces of advice that I ever got that I think is so important for more people in the paranormal who have an interest in the paranormal to hear is laughter is the best exorcism. M It is the best way to clear space. Yeah, and if you can have a good sense of humor about things that are scary, you can withstand just about any that is.
Great, because yeah, I mean some moments it's not great and then all of a suden everyone starts laughing, and it's like that bad energy just out of the data.
I'll tell you the way that I deal with fear. I just start to giggle and laugh.
Help my initial the most terrifying thing happens, and I'm like laughing about it like a completely because it.
Feels so absurd. There's invisible monsters and they're terrifying. Yeah, it's very funny.
Yeah, it is funny to just sort of look at like sometimes I just sit here and I'm like, I get to talk to people about like it's so weird, Like right, it's so cool, though, I don't know, it's all fun. Well, guys, you've been so generous with your time. Thank you for Oh my god, you so fun. I hope we can do this again, absolutely many more times in the future. But yeah, tell tell everybody just everything that whatever you want them to know, where they can find you and all that.
Well, I think we're both pretty easy to find.
We're pretty easy to find.
I do have something I'd love to shout out if people are interested in supporting a cosmic horror film. I'm doing something that's a little outside of my comfort zone. I'm very excited about. I'm executive producing a horror film based around the concept of Eedgrigor's, which we've talked a little bit about, and the script is so scary. The cinematographer is incredible. The director is a had directed a really fantastic short about an alien abduction support group. It's
called Prefigured, and you can find that on YouTube. But it's it's I'm very very excited about it because I've never seen a horror movie like this before and it's kind of about what happens when enough people put enough energy to summon something terrible into the world. And it's called The build Out and we're fundraising for it right now. We're fifty percent. We're fifty percent of the way there
and we've got about a month ago. And if you want to learn more about this movie, and you know, have your name attached to something that I truly believe is going to change horror horror films had to the Buildout movie or the buildoutfilm dot.
Com amazing, Oh my god, that sounds great. Thank you so much to Greg and Dana Newkirk. Oh, we'll see you at Phenomena Con this weekend. Patreon dot com slash Para Museum to get those tickets and I'll say hi to you. Can't wait speaking to Patreon this week. I have me talking for about forty five minutes about supernatural Catholicism and that's my second tier Patreon dot com slash Roz Dresfels. I would love if you would support There's
a link in the description of this episode. Please subscribe to the show and rate it five stars on Apple Podcasts. If you have a ghost story, leave it in a five star review or put it in our Facebook group called Ghosted by Roz dres Feles. You can email me your ghost stories at ghosted by Roz at gmail dot com. If you want to be on a listener episode, do that. Send me some bullet points to go through by ros at gmail dot com and put in the subject line
listener episode. I am on Instagram at Roz Hernandez and TikTok and Twitter is It's Raz Hernandez. I'll be back next week. I love you all, both living and dead.
But if I didn't ask you to haunt me, don't haunt me. Hey back
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