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Hello, I am Joshua P. Warren, and this is Joshua P. Warren Daly. You know, I was on a television special um maybe like 12 years ago. I think it was around 2005, or might have been earlier than that, called Possessed Possessions. And it aired, I think, Halloween night on TLC The Learning Channel. Best I recall, it was about two hours long. And it was basically like a an antique scroll show for haunted and cursed items. We filmed this thing on the Queen Mary, which is, of course, a permanently docked ship in Long Beach, California, that's extremely haunted. The ship is so big that you could fit the Titanic inside of it. It gives you some scale. And the show was hosted by James Von Prague, the famous psychic medium. And essentially, um, they wanted to have a small crew where von Prague would um he would well, we we would ask people to come from all over the country, if not the world, and bring items that might have some energy attached. And then his small crew that would investigate the items in one way or another consisted of two psychics, uh ladies named Larlee and Karen Reese, who were both just uh extremely talented, gifted psychics, I must tell you that. And I don't say that very often because uh uh you you find a lot of people who say they're psychic that are not very accurate, but these ladies have both of them have blown my mind on many occasions. And then I was hired to be, uh, as I often am, more of the tech uh geek, you know, who comes in with all the gadgets and gizmos to see if we can test these items and and document anything objective, some kind of odd energy field, or who knows, maybe there's a temperature anomaly, or you know, just what something's radioactive, whatever, I can measure these things. So people came and they brought all kinds of stuff. Uh you had cursed and haunted little dolls, you had uh eerie things like uh surgical instruments uh used in the Civil War. Um one guy had an entire hearse that was haunted. Um I mean, you you can just imagine the spectrum of things that people submitted to be a part of this program. And it was a lot of fun to do this show. It was uh kind of a grueling schedule. Um we were on the Queen Mary for a while shooting this thing on, I don't know, maybe uh at least a week, seven to ten days, I guess. And um the hours were were very, very long. Essentially, they would sequester, that is to say, they would put me and the two psychics in a room where we couldn't really learn anything about the objects. So in the meantime, James would sit there and he would he would talk to the per to the owner about the object, and then you know, then I would come out and I would do some measurements, and then finally the psychics would come out having no information whatsoever about the background of the thing, and then they would give their impressions. And that was you know often like the big payoff that they would they would be able to sense all these things that they should not have been able to know. And as time went on, we kind of started mixing it up a little bit, and in order to save time, occasionally they would tell me, like, well, you don't have to be sequestered. You why don't you go out there in advance and do some readings on this and just kind of come and on camera tell us what readings you got. So I guess probably the big grand finale of all this is they tell me, All right, the last piece we're gonna have here is a little bit different. There was this guy who had spent a lot of time in Africa, and he had this African tribal mask that is one of the creepiest and scariest looking things I've ever seen. And this guy said that this mask was used, and there's no telling how old this mask was, big wooden mask with a creepy, creepy-looking grimace on it. This mask would be put on trees uh around the boundary of different tribal territories. And this was this was supposed to be the no trespassing. If you walk past this thing, you're screwed post. And so witch doctors who made these things, they would do all kinds of horrible things during the process of construction, rituals. And we don't even know what they did, what kinds of torture and suffering and how blood-drenched the ritual was to create this ultimate evil object, so that if somebody's walking along and they stumble up on somebody else's territory and they see that thing, they're like, oh, time to turn around, not gonna mess with that. And for some reason, this guy, this he's an American guy, he wanted um he wanted this mask, and he talked to some person who had it in Africa, and I don't know, the guy said, No, no, this is too dangerous for you to have, and all that sort of thing. And then one day a box just shows up at this American guy's house, and he opens it, and it's the mask. And it turns out that the fellow who had it in Africa had died, and he said, you know, you're the only person who might understand the significance of what to do with this, so I'm sending it to you. So, long story short, this guy was sort of this American guy, was kind of obsessed, I think, with the idea of this mask, and he told us that since he had this mask, since he'd gotten it, there were just about everybody close to him had died in one way or another. You know, accidents, diseases, I mean, all his friends and family had died who had been near this thing, and he himself had cancer. So everybody on the set was like, Jeez, don't get near that thing, you know. And uh, I mean, this was serious because they verified this guy's story and you know, it powerful stuff. So came the day to shoot with this guy, and the director comes up and pulls me aside and says, So, Josh, uh, here's how we want to set this up. We're gonna have James on stage, and he's gonna sit there, James von Frog, and he's gonna interview this guy about the mask. And we're gonna have the mask sitting there. It's a big mask, okay? This thing's probably, I don't know, two and a half feet tall, something like that, maybe more like three feet. It's a big, big, heavy wooden mask. He says, We're gonna have the mask on a stand sitting behind these guys. And we're gonna have a big heavy glass case over top of the mask so that the mask is secured. Okay. So he said, when James finishes interviewing the guy, this is the big moment of the show. We want you, Joshua P. Warren, to walk over by yourself and to lift the glass off of the mask. This big heavy glass case off of the mask and sit it down. But be sure not to touch the mask. And I say, Are you uh are you fucking kidding me? And he guys guy goes, No, no, he says, you know, we want this to be dramatic, and you're the guy who's gonna do measurements, and it would be amazing to have you come and take it away, exposes us, you know, to this mask, everybody would be able to edge their seat. You take some measurements, the psychics come out just like now let me tell you something, my friends. At this age and at in my life, after having done so many different TV episodes, I think I would have said, Nina, take this job and shove it, right? But they talked me into doing this. Now this was now I'm you know, I'm a fairly large band, I'm tall, but even for me to reach up into the they had this thing on a stand and lift it off was even more complicated because there wasn't very much clearance between the glass and the mask. So what that meant was they were telling me if you once you start lifting this thing up, you you've got to do it very slowly so you don't bump this mask, it's vertically positioned inside there, and uh and you've got to tilt it just at the right angle at just the right point so that you can clear the mask as you lift that glass case off of it. And it's like, oh god, this is not, you know, this is not for me. There are people who get paid to handle these props. I'm talent, you know, I'm not supposed to be doing this. But they were insistent. So everybody on the set hears about this, and they're all like, oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, Joshua's gonna get near that thing and touch. I go in for hair and makeup, and you know, everybody in there is like, for you know, for the love of God, whatever you do, you know, don't touch that thing. I'm like, yeah, yeah, no shit. So finally the time comes, and it was probably a hundred degrees in that room. That we were shooting this when it was hot weather anyway, and they had all the big lights on, and everybody's sweaty, and my hands are sweaty. I'm like, oh my gosh. So it comes time. Everybody looks at me, I come walking out, you could have heard a pin drop. I reach down, I put my sweaty palms on this heavy glass case. Uh it would have been nice if I at least had some suction cuts or something. So I start lifting this thing up, and it's even heavier than I thought it was gonna be. I'm trying to get a good grip on this thing. And so here I am lifting it higher and higher, revealing direct exposure to that mask inch by inch, and finally I got right to the point where I thought I needed to start tilting it forward to clear the thing, and guess what? I bumped the damn thing. And as soon as I bumped it, I took that opportunity when I saw it wobbling to get that case all the way off and hold my breath, and that mask is there next to me, and it's petering, it's wobbling back and forth, back and forth. And everybody in the room collectively took a gasp. Because I figure, okay, if this thing falls, I'm not going to try to catch it. We're going to watch this thing tumble over and hit the floor and maybe splinter in half. And this guy who owns it, who already is uh probably gonna die, is probably gonna die right there on the spot on camera because he's so attached to this creepy thing. So anyway, the mask goes back and forth, back and forth, and then it stabilizes. And everybody breathes a sigh of relief, and I got away from that thing. I was like, okay, screw that guys. I'm not I'll I'll quit this thing if I have to do anything else like that. So I never touched it. As far as I can tell, I came through unscathed, and um the psychics came out and didn't just a spot-on incredible job of knowing everything about that mask and just like how it's just surrounded by deaths and all that kind of stuff that we knew about already, just from the owner telling us. And but what really shocked me is that one of the psychics, I think it was Karen, pulled the name out of the air, but he called the mask. It started with an F. It reminded me of like a Sam or something like that, but just nailed this name, this weird name that this mask was called. And so I do not know uh the fate of that man who owned that mask who said he had cancer. I assume he died probably pretty soon afterward. But I haven't followed up on that, and uh, it's kind of funny because sometimes I think of these stories that I want to tell you on this podcast, and then uh I'm sort of just remembering things, and as I remember it, I'm like, you know what, I should go back and check this out and follow up on it, you know. And so this is one of the cool things about doing these podcasts. Well, I'm telling you this story right now, for one thing, because it's the holiday season coming up, and a lot of people are starting to shop already for Christmas gifts and and uh other other types of holiday gifts. Um and that show, Possessed Possessions, was based, the concept was based on a um a book called Possessed Possessions. Uh the author was a very nice guy. I believe his name was Ed Okonowitz. He was a very nice guy. He was on the set as an authority, and he was saying that if you're if you're gonna go out and buy something at a yard sale or whatever, here are some some clues that it might be a possessed possession. Um one is that the the the thing the price they put on it is just too good to be true. You look at something that should cost a heck of a lot more, but it seems to be a very low price. And in some cases, they're just trying to give it away. So that's that he said that was just one of the big the big clues to look for, and that makes sense, that's logical. So I want you to know that because of my experiences on that set, I have always been very particular about the objects that I put in my Asheville Mystery Museum, and I will not take certain objects that I feel have a negative energy around them. It's okay if there's a little spirit attached and there's something kind of playful and mischievous, but I'm not going to take something that I think is evil. And I mentioned to you that uh Zach Begins is a lot braver than I am, I guess, because he has some stuff in his museum that I think would be kind of downright scary to have serial killer stuff and things like that. So I'm I don't do that. I just have things that uh have some kind of paranormal energy, but some of them are definitely spooky. So as you know, I'm doing this new website called unusualauctions.com, where I am auctioning off some of these items from my collection and from the Asheville Mystery Museum. Now, when these items sell, they're going to be shipped by my good friend and colleague, Mr. Mobius. He is a professional shipper, and that is, you know, that's a serious job. I uh I'm traveling all the time, I'm I'm busy, I don't have time to do the actual shipping. So what I've done is I've taken these objects that I've put up for auction at uh unusualauctions.com and I've given them to Mobius, and he's been storing them right there on his property. He has an apartment and he has uh a storage unit and all that on his property. So as soon as it's the auction's over or it gets sold in one way or another, then he will immediately do a professional job of shipping it out and making sure it's packed very nicely and all that. So I got this interesting email from him today that I want to read to you. Because at unusualauctions.com, one of the things we have here is uh it's called Spooky Clown plays eerie music. Okay, and it's literally just a little clown doll that plays um send in the clowns as its head slowly moves. And of course, you know, a lot of people are creeped out anyway by um by clowns, especially now with the movie It. And so he he sent me this email and he said, This clown doll is creepy. And he said, It feels creepy. I'm reading his email, he says, Ever since it's been here, some weird shit has happened. He said, Today, with no explanation, a cat was in my apartment and all the doors were locked, and it was of all places sleeping by this clown box. He said, I think you can call this a possessed possession. We have no idea what cat this is or how it got inside my place. He says, I do not think this is evil energy, it just seems to be kind of mischievous, but it still is really creepy. So imagine that. He's got all these objects in his house, and he walks in, and out of the blue, there's a cat, a strange cat that he doesn't even own, has no idea where it came from. And what's this cat doing? It's sleeping next to the clown. So, you know, again, I would not be offering this if I thought there was anything negative, but it is spooky. So um, it's gonna be funny to get more stories from Mobius as we sort of group all these objects together in one place ready to be shipped and see what kind of interesting things occur, what kind of mayhem may break out. So, anyway, um keep that in mind as you do your your holiday shopping. Uh buy things that have good energy or just unusual energy. But some people some people like these little things that have a a spirit attached to them, and you know, I do. Um you just have to put it at the right place. It's nice if you have a museum where you can keep it all instead of your bedroom or something like that. All right, that is it for today. Uh, this is Joshua P. Warren Daily, and if you go to joshua p.com, you will find a uh link there at the top of the page where you can find these podcasts, subscribe in various ways, and you can also follow me on Twitter to be alerted when a new one is posted most of the time. All right. Uh thank you for listening. Thank you for staying curious, and I will talk to you again soon.