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Hello, I am Joshua P. Warren, and this is Joshua P. Warren Daily. And as we inch closer to Halloween, I have some more spooky and Halloween stories and poems to share with you, things that I love to get into that festive mood as we get closer to All Hallows Eve. And I have something to share with you that's not spooky at all. In fact, it's inspirational. It's called the 10-day miracle challenge. And if you are the type of person who is trying to manifest good things in your life using magical thinking, you're going to love this. It's going to be um, it's going to give you some ideas and clarify some things. And I think that you can really use this information. So it's a great selection of topics I have for you on this particular edition of the podcast. Before we get into all that stuff, uh, let me just say, because the Halloween is coming up, my goodness, the Haunted Asheville Ghost Tours in Asheville, North Carolina, my hometown, they are every every tour is sold out. I mean, we have four of them running tonight. All of them sold out. And so if you uh want to take a Haunted Asheville tour, you know, I created them, I own them, I manage them, uh, and I've got the best tour guides in the world there at Haunted Asheville. If you're in the Asheville, North Carolina area, then uh you have to go on the tour if you can get a ticket. Go to hauntedasheville.com and click the red button for the booking calendar and you'll see what your options are. Uh, in fact, you know what? My chief occult researcher there, uh the guide who's been with me the longest, Mr. Tad McDivitt. Uh he just went on the news the other day, because you know, every Halloween the media calls people like me and they want to do some kind of a uh a story, you know, a featured Halloween story. And they wanted to do one in Asheville, but I'm here in Las Vegas right now. So Ted went and met with the reporter at the Grove Park Inn Resort and Spa, which of course is haunted by the eerie pink lady apparition. And I just want to say kudos to Ted for repping Haunted Asheville Ghost Tours on the news segment there, Channel 4 WIFF TV. He did a great job. And so it's exciting to have this time of year roll around when people can actually come and physically get engaged in paranormal investigation and you know open their minds to the spooky sides of life. Also, every Halloween, every October, I should say, the small town of Morganton, North Carolina, which is right next to Brown Mountain, where we have the infamous Brown Mountain Lights, they run a tour for a couple of weekends called the Morganton Ghost Tour that they hired me to create for them years ago. So basically, I went to Morganton and I spent a lot of time there interviewing people, doing investigations, going through old records, and put this fantastic tour together that you can only experience like two weekends out of the year. And it's always the latter half of October. And so if you are near Morganton, North Carolina, and you want to take the Morganton Ghost tour, uh, I think tickets are only like five bucks. Yeah, they're practically giving the tickets away because they do this to bring tourists into the downtown area. Um, and uh, but it's let me tell you, it's uh it's a top-notch five-star high-quality tour. I promise you that. Uh, go to my Twitter at Joshua P. Warren at Joshua P. Warren if you want to find the link to how you can go on the Morganton, North Carolina Ghost Tour this month. All right, so before I get into all of this um fun, spooky, creepy Halloween stuff that we love so much, uh, let me talk to you some about the 10-day miracle challenge. And there is a lesson in this that is especially important for every single person who is trying to conduct a manifestation exercise. This is something that can make the difference between success and failure when you are trying to crystallize something magnificent. Okay, you're trying to make something just fall into your lap. You want the universe to just give you something. And you know, you should never ever doubt that it's possible for the universe to give you whatever you want, because the universe it's all in there. The universe is a big, big thing. Anything that you can imagine, it's it's there. Whatever house you want, whatever kind of money you want, whatever projects that you want, even a healthier lifestyle can all be accessed, you know. Um, these are all things that can be tapped into. You can everybody can at least improve life using these manifestation techniques. So any help you get is great. So I came across this article the other day, and I believe I found it somewhere on the Coast to Coast AM website. And I'm just going to read it to you, uh, not in its entirety. I'll read parts of it though. It's published on a website called humanparts.medium.com. Humanparts.medium.com. That sounds uh like it could be a gruesome Halloween site, doesn't it? HumanParts. Uh this is an article written by Mitch Horowitz. And he I'll I'll just start reading it to you. He says, an old friend studied physics in the graduate program at Columbia University. He was also an astrologer. He had a particular talent and respect for daily horoscopes. Yes, the same sunsign columns that run in daily newspapers and online. I questioned the method. Quote, it's a trick, he replied. But sometimes a trick works, end quote. Sometimes a trick works. Now I'm pausing for a moment to say, you might be wondering what does he mean by that? But I think I think you'll catch on here. He goes on to say, most spell workers and practitioners of chaos or ceremonial magic would agree. In fact, the sole question that really matters in all mystical or therapeutic methods is does it work? Often a treatment works or fails based on whether the wished for outcome can reach you along established lines. Working with established lines is one of the subtlest, subtlest and most important points in all of practical spirituality. It means you must pay attention to practical channels of arrival and fulfillment. Okay. So this is the big thing, the big key that you need to keep in mind this concept of established lines. And he gives an example. He says, in 1910, this man named Wallace Wattles wrote in a book called The Science of Getting Rich this excerpt. In creating the formless seems to move according to the lines of motion it has established. The thought of an oak tree does not cause the instant formation of a full grown tree, but it does start in motion the forces which will produce the tree along established lines of growth. Every thought of form held in thinking substance causes the creation of form, but always, or at least generally along the lines of growth and action already established. The thought of a house of a certain construction, if it were impressed upon formless substance, might not cause the instant formation of the house, but it would cause the turning of creative energies already working in trade and commerce into such channels as to result in the speedy building of the house. And if there were no existing channels through which the creative energy could work, then the house would be formed directly from primal substance without waiting for the slow processes of the organic and inorganic world. Okay, so did you get that? What he's saying is that when you want to create something, it may not just poof appear as if a leprechaun has dropped it at your feet, that it is going to appear for you according to ways and opportunities that make sense to you. He goes on to say here, in practical terms, this means that your goal is likely to reach you along familiar or pre-existing channels. For example, if you seek the cure of an illness, the likelihood is not that your illness will spontaneously lift, but rather that you will discover a network of treatments that will produce your recovery. If you are looking for work, the overwhelming odds are that you will make connections and find ideas and leads that will deliver you what you need. Less likely is that somebody will just walk up to you and hand you signed and sealed exactly what you need. Some practitioners of chaos magic take this principle a step further. When prescribing a spell or ceremony, which is really just a ritualized intention, no different from positive mind or new thought methods, they insist that in order for such operations to work, there must be a clear avenue of arrival. For example, if you wish for love but dwell as a hermit, well, there is no obvious channel of delivery. But if you wish for love and then actively circulate among people, you are providing an established means or channel for your fulfillment. So from here he goes on to say, each individual must study and consider this step for themselves. Are you asking for something that fits the context of your life, practices, and habits? Is there a foreseeable means of delivery? Or, put from a different perspective, are you neglecting or overlooking patterns of delivery? Or perhaps the very arrival of what you want simply because it reaches you in unfamiliar ways? He writes, I recently devised an exercise to help people work with this principle. I call it the Ten-Day Miracle Challenge. It is very simple, but as the title implies, potentially very powerful, and it works according to these six steps. Are you ready for the six steps? And by the way, you don't have to write all this down and scramble. If you have access to the internet, you can go to my Twitter page at Joshua P. Warren, and I posted a link to this article as well. So you can get go just copy and paste this material. Number one, decide on something that you truly and passionately want in your life. And by the way, I think that you know it's important to put the word passionately in there because uh you need to have an emotional sort of investment and the outcome of a situation. It's one thing to say, you know, I want a new car. But it's another thing to say, like, I want a red uh Toyota, you know, that smells brand new, that is fuel efficient, that has a great sound system, and you start like envisioning all of the uh the adjectives and descriptions that sort of make this thing come to life in your mind. But anyway, number one, decide on something that you truly and passionately want in your life. Number two is write it down. Your wish should be easily boiled down to a single sentence, such as, quote, I have a peaceful new home nearby, end quote. You you hear me talk about this all the time as well. You have to condense what you want into something that's one sentence or less. Number three, set a fixed period of time. So in this case, ten days by which to receive your desired element. Now, this one is one that's usually up in the air when it comes to manifestation because people contact me and they say, Well, um, how long is it going to take for this thing that I wished for to manifest? And I'm actually going to share with you one of my uh responses because if you go to wishing machineproject.com, over on the right side in red letters, it says click here for FAQ. And even though these are F frequently asked questions regarding the wishing machines, a lot of this information applies to many different forms of uh manifestation and manifestation tools. So for example, how long is it going to take? Um I usually send them this information. Um let me see if I can find it now. Because uh you know, every everything is uh everybody's different and every situation is different. Okay, here we go. This varies greatly on a case-for-case basis. We feel it depends on how many factors in the universe must or uh the universe must rearrange themselves to conform to your specific desire. In our experiments, some things happen almost instantly. Other things that are more complex can take weeks, months, or years depending on the magnitude. The length of time seems to depend partially on the following factors. Number one, who is the person placing the intention and what is their current position in life, that is to say, their starting point. For example, it's easier for a millionaire to manifest a million dollars next week than it is for a person with $20 in their account. Okay, because there's a mental block there, there's a mental leap that few of us can make from $20 to a million dollars. It's more of a gradual buildup unless you hit the lotto. Uh number two, how many changes need to occur for reality to conform to the desire? So, for example, it's easier to get your neighbors to quieten down than it is to assemble the entire cast and crew of a feature film and shoot it successfully. Number three, what is the timing? That is, how many opposing factors are working against you? For example, it's easier to wish for a front row seat at the Super Bowl during the off season rather than waiting until the day before the game, right? Timing, because you have to realize that when you are using manifestation techniques, you're not the only person in the world doing that. Other people are doing it as well, so your intentions are being weighed against theirs in terms of who's a better manifester, and now it's like Wizard Wars, who's the better magician here in this situation? So that is something that I just wanted to point out when it comes to what you should generally consider regarding timing. So that's why this makes his proposition especially intriguing as an experiment, because he's saying, for this one, set a fixed period of time, ten days. Say this thing is gonna happen in ten days. So we here are the three things we have so far. Number one, decide on something you truly and passionately want in life. Number two, write it down, okay, one sentence or less. Number three, set a fixed period of time, ten days for this one. Number four, draw a grid of ten boxes and consecutively cross one out each day to mark your progress towards your aim. So, in other words, have a calendar there. Uh, and and mark out, you know, ten days on this calendar and keep track of it. You mark those days off as you get closer to it, and this keeps you engaged in the process. Number five, every day, as often and as powerfully as you can, pray, visualize, affirm, and meditate upon the realization of your wish. And then number six is finally, and here is the most important part, watch very carefully for the arrival of your aim, and take care not to overlook or discount the means by which it arrives. That's where a lot of people screw up. They go through the whole thing, they make it right to the end, and then that happens and they and they blow it because they it it doesn't arrive the way they were expecting it to arrive, and you have a problem. He says, your wish could reach you in a wholly unexpected manner, fulfilling your need but arriving in a very different fashion from what you pictured or expected, or your wish could arrive along such seemingly mundane or ordinary lines that you're apt to miss it, and you overlook the realization of the very thing you need. The point of this exercise is that our needs are often fulfilled, at least in potential, in ways that we are prone to neglect because the arrival doesn't resemble our preconceptions, or it happens in such a seemingly mundane fashion that we discount it. Remember again, life generally works along previously established lines. He says, You may, for example, wish for recovery from an injury, but at the same time reject an invitation to a movement or energy medicine class or the sanctioned advice of a teacher, therapist, or physician, which may set you on the road to wellness. So remember, life generally works along previously established lines. Hence, the thing that you wish for may reach you in ways that seem ordinary, even though they are the royal road to your fulfillment. And he ends this article by um sharing a story that I also paraphrased in my book, Use the Force, a Jedi's Guide to the Law of Attraction, which you can be reading instantly, as a matter of fact. If you go to joshua pwarren.com, you'll see on the home page a picture of it there. And you just click that link and you can download that for I think nine less than ten dollars. It's like nine dollars and ninety-seven cents or something like that. And uh and you can download that. Uh maybe it's nine ninety-five. Anyway, whatever it is, it's not much, and you can download that and you can be reading that right now, and it can change your life. And you, if you don't believe me, go look at the reviews. But here's the story. He says, I want to share a joke that uh drives this point home. During a massive flood, a clergyman fled to the roof of his church to avoid being swept away in the waters. A man in a raft came by and told him to come aboard. The clergyman refused. God will save me, he said. Someone rowed by in a boat and urged him to come on it, but again the clergyman refused. God will save me, he said. Finally a helicopter appeared overhead and dropped a ladder, but the man waved it away. God will save me, he yelled. The floodwaters eventually overtook the clergyman and he drowned. Upon reaching heaven he protested to God, I've served you all my life, why didn't you save me? To which God replied, I didn't save you. I sent the raft, I sent the boat, I sent the helicopter. So he says the lesson is remain open, take the road when it appears, reject nothing out of hand, and never neglect established means. Watch for them. Now, if you grasp that and you really take that to heart and you let that sink in, that is an extremely powerful key to success to manifest whatever you want. And these tools that you have are they're great tools. If you have a wishing machine or a wand, or you have the psionic dematerializer, the bad buster, what you know, some people they love to use potions, your crystal work, whatever tool you're using. Ultimately, all you want is to achieve some kind of a result. And so the tool is only able to direct what you put into it. And so what you have to do with your mind is uh make sure that you frame the things that you're looking for in the context of things that can be received, even though they don't have to come the way you demand that they come. You know, people contact me and they say, Oh, I want to win the lottery. And I say, Well, you know what? Some people win the lottery and they get $1,000. Some people win the lottery and they get a hundred million dollars. It depends on what kind of lottery. You got to get more specific. You can't just say, I want to win the lottery. How much money are you looking for? Let's start there. Okay, is the lottery the only way you could get that kind of money? Or does the universe possibly have other things in mind that you couldn't even imagine, other ways of bringing this to you? Because what do you want to do with that money? Let's skip the money. What do you want? You want a new house? You want a new car? You just want to be out of debt? Well, okay, fine. Let's let's jump to what you want. Okay, you've got to whittle it down to that degree. And it's really, really important also that when you use a manifestation method successfully, that you don't turn around and then throw it under the bus and deny that you used it. Because I think that part of the lesson that we're supposed to learn here in this classroom called Life is that when you find something that helps you, then you are you have a duty to share it with others in some form. And you know, that's one of the great things about this podcast. This podcast is free. You don't have to sign up for anything. Anyone can click this link and listen to this free podcast, and I can give you all kinds of information like I just did. Now, if you choose to go further than that and you want to go and buy something physical, well, that's different. Now we're talking about a physical product, and you know that that goes through a manufacturing process and there are expenses involved, and you know, so but it but the information is free. And things have helped me tremendously throughout my life. You know, I don't have to tell you what a great life I have, and I share all this stuff with you, and some people get it and some people don't. But when you have success using some technique that can be thought of as magical, there is a principle that has often been stated in the history of magical thinking, which is if you use magic successfully to get what you want, and then you deny that you did that after the fact, well, then you'll lose everything. And because again, you're betraying it. And so it's kind of like if somebody is uh, well, let's say somebody's suffering from a health problem, and they say, I've been to every doctor in the world and I can't figure out what the problem is, you know. And then somebody says, Well, here is a magical technique that maybe you want to try out. Okay, and the person tries out the magical technique, and a month later, the person is is fine, the problem is gone. And the friend who gave the magical advice says, Well, I guess it worked. And the person says, Oh no, that didn't have anything to do with it. Turns out a couple days later, I got a call from this doctor, and he was the doctor that I should have talked to to begin with, and he told me what I was doing wrong, and he gave me the right medicine, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And that is a betrayal of the magical thinking you use because it was that magical thinking that may have helped bring that doctor to you to give you that realistic way of making your goal um a real, tangible, externalized result. Okay. If you've it's it's a certain mindset that you have to have in order for this stuff to work. And frankly, sometimes, and and this is a taboo thing to say, but it's I found it in my own life. Sometimes, even though it's wonderful to take advantage of free information, and I give away a lot of free information, but sometimes I think that people need to have to buy something in order for it to work. Because if you buy something, that shows you are investing more than just money into it, you're investing some of your mental attention that is necessary to get this thing working. So it's kind of like there are times when I have done programs uh where like a speaking engagement for an hour or two. And the thing is, I you know, I could have easily done the engagement for free. I was doing just fine financially. I didn't need anybody's money. I could have happily got up there and done it for free. But instead, I decided to charge, yeah, five bucks or ten bucks or a hundred dollars, depending on the situation, because that is going to change the type of person who is willing to come in and sit down. You're going to get different levels of people who are more or less serious. And if you want serious stuff, you know, money can be a good filter for that. Because people have to take a little bit of a risk and put a little bit of um uh of mental energy and uh and faith into what they expect to achieve. Otherwise, you know, they're just gonna throw up their hands and say, well, that was that was just some cheap bullshit anyway, right? Um, in fact, Joe Vitali, one of my favorite authors, uh, he was homeless for a good part of his life, and now he's a multimillionaire. And he said that uh he had a successful book signing and he likes to smoke cigars, and so he went into a cigar shop and he said, What's the most expensive lighter you know you've got here or whatever? And so he bought this lighter for $750. And his friends that he was hanging out with, of course, they the word got around Joe just bought a $750 cigar lighter, and they thought, like, this guy has lost it because you know you can you can get a match that cost you a penny and light your cigar, right? Or you know, big lighters are a dime a dozen, you can just bum a light from somebody. Why would you do that? And he said he didn't do that because that it made sense for from some kind of like a financial standpoint. Uh he did it because mentally it made him feel like money was no object. And it was it's that feeling that starts to attract abundance and prosperity. It's it's people who who get worried all the time and and pinch every penny and stay all tense and focused on things. Those are the people who stay poor their whole lives. Uh but when you come to a a point where you you're not so wound up and so tightly attached to money, you start creating that feeling of of comfort and relaxation and confidence, and that's what law of attraction is about. When you when you are when you have the feeling that I am an abundant, prosperous person, then that is what is going to be reflected to you. And it may take a little time for you to set the tone, especially if that's a big reversal or a change for you. But it's all of this is about the mind. That's why when you go to wishing machineproject.com, the the website doesn't say wishing machines, it says mind machines, mind machines. These are mind-powered machines, and uh it's all you know, just like with the computer, garbage in, garbage out. You know, you've got to you've got to put the right mindset into these things. And, you know, it's all experimental because everybody's different, everybody's unique, but that's what I do, and so that's all I'm telling you. That's what I do. All right, so I hope you found that interesting, and I hope that that stuff helps you out as you continue doing your own personal experiments in whatever way is satisfactory to you. Now let's get on to some of the more spooky traditional Halloween stuff, shall we? You know, uh, a lot of people they question every year, like, now why are we doing this again? Like, why are we putting on masks and lighting up jack-o' lanterns and doing trick-or-treating? Like, what? And um, well, for one thing, there is some confusion apparently about exactly how the Halloween as we celebrate it all came together. Um, most of my life, I'd always heard, well, it goes back to the Celtic, you know, the Gaelic Celtic cultures there around Ireland and Scotland and Old Britannia and all that. In particular, they had this festival called Salin, which was a harvest festival around the end of October that would celebrate uh the abundance of the harvest and then prepare for the transition into the dark, cold, intimidating winter months. Okay, it's literally a transition between life and death. And so they have a big festival there, and uh and they believe because that their whole world is transitioning from life to death, that as you break through the threshold of that day, that in particular that is when there's the maximum potential for spirits of the dead to come back and interact with spirits of the living, when the veil is the thinnest on that day, October 31st, going into November 1st. And that um and that when that happens, well, uh, yeah, some good spirits are going to come back, but a lot of bad, mischievous spirits are gonna come back, and those are the ones that you have to be concerned about. And so you'll want to do things to scare them away, you know, use scary decorations around your house, or things that will make them feel comfortable with you. So if you run around and you're dressed up like some kind of ghost or scary creature, they're not going to pay any attention to you. They'll just think you're one of them, and they'll move on to some, you know, innocent young victim and attack that person. And so this is where sort of the idea of wearing masks comes from, and then going around and uh asking for people to give you uh a treat, which is like a little sacrifice. You know, that's what you would do in the old days, especially with people who are practicing magic. You know, you hear me talk about it with minions. If you're going to create a minion, well, you have to feed it something. You get you reward it with something, you give it something that symbolizes your appreciation for that minion. And so that was always sort of my understanding of where most of the imagery of Halloween comes from. It's funny though, I looked it up again today here on the Wikipedia, and Wikipedia has it's it's currently stating that there are some people who are claiming that maybe Halloween was more of a Christian idea altogether. Uh it says, one theory holds that many Halloween traditions orient or excuse me, uh, originated from ancient Celtic harvest festivals. Other scholars believe, however, the Halloween, uh let's see, that Halloween began solely as a Christian holiday separate from ancient festivals like Salon. Well, that's intriguing, isn't it? Because the name certainly is a Christian uh of Christian origin. It's called Halloween because November the 1st in the Catholic Church is called All Saints Day. It's a day to honor all the saints, known and unknown, that have ever lived throughout history. Okay? And so they call that the Hallowed Day, the Hallowed Day. And so the night before that is called the Hallowed Evening, which was shortened to the Hallowed, Hallowed Eve or Halloween is what it would what it basically became. So Halloween is a shortened version of Hallowed evening, and it's all because that November 1st is All Saints' Day in the Catholic Church. And then November 2nd, by the way, is called All Souls Day, in which the church honors not just uh all of the saints, but the souls of all departed people, particularly departed loved ones. And so, you know, it seems pretty obvious to most people who study this stuff that this is an example of the Catholic Church taking a bunch of traditions that already existed in the pagan world and then uh adopting them in some form, uh, you know, Christian uh uh making them Christian like or Christianizing or whatever you want to call it, uh these these pagan concepts so that the pagan people could more easily transition into the Christian mindset without them being at war constantly. And I mean, this happens a lot. Uh I mean, look at Christmas, for example. They say that, you know, the Christmas tree comes from this exact same situation where you had pagans who were worshiping nature spirits and they would worship a tree like an evergreen, and then there was one of these religious figures, a pope or a bishop or whatever, who said, Look, we could go to these people's land and say, Oh, that's your holy tree that you like, you pagan scum, and we could cut that tree down, and then they're gonna hate us. And then we're just gonna fight, and that's not gonna get us anywhere. Or we could go in and we could say, Oh, this is your special tree, and then we could consecrate that tree and say, now this is a Christian tree. So they kind of ease them into Christianity by consecrating what they are already into instead of outright telling them, you're wrong, and if you don't believe like we do, you're going to hell. So a lot of what I think our current Halloween traditions uh are uh are based upon that idea of this strange adoption of some of those pagan things uh that have a bit of a Christian spin on them. And um, you know, I uh mainly though in this country, especially here in the U.S., I mean, it's just it's a time for people to have some fun and let off some steam and you know, just party and get a little mischievous. Uh I know that there are a lot of truly terrible things that can happen on Halloween, but hey, that's any day, right? And I also have mentioned to you, it's funny to me how many people I know who were born close to Halloween, whether it's October or November, but um uh certainly late October and early November, who are really, really into paranormal stuff. And and it's not just a matter of um of meeting people, it's also a matter of just sort of my uh you know, my family and my genetic um situation. I mean, for example, uh I'm a Scorpio, I was born October 25th, and so Scorpio starts there in late October and it goes into early November. And my mother, I I, you know, I have of course of my parents and I have one sibling, my sister Jessica. My mother is a Scorpio, my sister is a Scorpio, and I'm a Scorpio. My mother-in-law was a Scorpio, my sister-in-law is a Scorpio, many of my friends are Scorpios. As a matter of fact, Dr. Mulder, you know, Dr. Mulder, the man who builds the wishing machines, his birthday is October the 31st. He was born on Halloween. And uh, you know, Scorpio is considered one of those signs that is just sort of naturally into spooky, strange, supernatural stuff. In fact, I was looking up who are some other people who were born on Halloween? And uh, there are actually a number of famous people. Uh, here are just some. Peter Jackson, of course, the director of big blockbuster movies like the Lord of the Rings series and then The Hobbit. Um, we have here Vanilla Ice. I'm sure he and Dr. Mulder have a lot in common. Uh we have, I'm just sort of scrolling down here. Dan Rather, the the journalist, John Candy, great comedic actor, Rob Schneider, another comedic actor, uh Michael Landon, a very famous actor. In fact, you may recall Michael Landon back in the 50s starred in a movie called I Was a Teenage Werewolf. I think I saw that one long time ago. I don't remember much about it, but it was pretty funny. And uh one of my favorite movies, though, as a guy who was born in the 70s and and grew up in the 80s, is the movie Teen Wolf with Michael J. Fox. I love that movie. And uh, you know, it's it's a really cheesy 80s movie, but it's just it's a good popcorn flick, you know, and it just never gets old to me. And uh just last night I was playing some of the music from the very obscure soundtrack to the movie Teen Wolf. Um, so yeah, a lot of famous people, uh more or less famous people and notable people, and the list goes on and on here, have were born on October 31st. Um not so many of the names, however, did I recognize of people who died on October 31st, which is even more intriguing in a way. You know, River Phoenix died on October 31st, and of course he was the young up-and-coming actor who uh seemed to have the whole world in front of him. He was the first actor to ever portray Indiana Jones as a kid on the big screen there. Um, but he overdosed on drugs in Los Angeles on Halloween night. Of course, the most famous person who died on October 31st was Harry Houdini. And uh I've actually got some Houdini posters hanging up in my condo here in Las Vegas. And, you know, he's hands down. He is the uh he is the patron saint of all magicians and perhaps even entertainers in general. And uh, you know, I don't have the information right in front of me, but you know, basically, you probably know this. Houdini was he was famous for letting people punch him in the stomach because he was uh he he was adamant about keeping his stomach muscles very strong. And basically he was getting ready for a show, and uh a young like college student who was sort of uh an amateur boxer just hauled off and hit him in the stomach when Houdini wasn't ready and it burst his appendix and he got really, really sick, and he pushed through and the show went on, but finally he he succumbed to the uh to the the appendix uh burst, and that's what killed him. It must have gotten infected. But uh people have been trying every year since then to connect with the spirit of Harry Houdini on October the 31st. They say officially they never have succeeded, but I don't know. There is a there's a rumor out there that his wife claimed that she was able to successfully contact him, and he gave her a little code word that was only between the two of them, so she would know for sure if he came back from the other side. Who knows? But anyway, let's explore this concept a little bit more. This concept of the Halloween culture, what it means to us. Does the veil really get thinner, and why do we have some of these traditions? Well, I want to play for you first here a legend that I actually played for you on this podcast last Halloween as well. Usually I run this around Halloween, so instead of me doing it over again from scratch, I am going to play this clip for you from my podcast that I did October of last year, 2019. And this is one of my favorite little Halloween tales. It is the tale of old Stingy Jack. Here we go. Centuries ago, amongst the countryside of green and superstitious towns and villages in Ireland, there lived a drunkard known as Stingy Jack. Jack was known throughout the land as a deceiver, a manipulator, and a dredge on his community. On one fateful Halloween night, typical of Jack, he was drunk and wandering through the countryside on a moonlit evening when he stumbled upon a shadowy body lying in his path. And to his surprise, the body, with an eerie grimace on his pale face, rose suddenly, and the figure said to Stingy Jack, I am the devil, and I have finally come for you. You knew this day would come. What do you want with me? exclaimed Jack. I'm here to take your soul down to hell, said the horrible grinning figure. Jack seemed to accept his fate, but he said to the devil, Well then it then please at least g just give me one last drink of L before I go. Well the devil, always up for a good time, said Okay, yes, fine then let's go to the pub for your last L. Well they had a good old time drinking up a storm for hours. And finally the tab came due, but Jack didn't have a penny to his name. So he said to the devil, You're a great and powerful magician. Let's see if you can turn yourself into a silver coin we can give this barkeep. Well the devil was happy to show off and oblige, and he transformed himself into a silver coin. Well Jack quickly stuffed that coin into his pocket, where he always kept a crucifix. And this trapped old Satan. His power was gone next to a crucifix. The devil begged Jack to let him go free, but Jack said, I know, I know my inevitable fate, but I'll only release you if you grant me ten more years on this earth. The devil had no choice but to agree. Now you'd think old Stingy Jack would have changed his ways, but he did not. Some say he got even worse. The time flies by and Halloween night. Ten years later old Jack was wandering the moonlit countryside when once again his old friend the devil appeared next to a dark tree. It's been ten years, growled the devil. Now it's time to go, Jack. And Jack bowed his head and said, All right, all right, I know it's time. But at least give me one last morsel of food from this good green earth before I have to go. And the devil was strangely fond of Jack and said, Fine, I'll give you one last morsel of food since you won't be getting it anymore forever. And they were next to an apple tree, and Jack said, I can't reach them apples up there. But you are a great and powerful spirit. Can you please run up that tree and take me down an apple to feed this hungry belly? And once again, the devil agreed to this request. But as the devil climbed up the gnarled branches of the tree, clever old stingy Jack reached in his pockets and quickly surrounded the base of the tree with a ring of crucifixes. Satan was mad as hell, mad that he had been entrapped again and demanded his release. And as before, Jack made a demand that his soul never be taken by Satan into Hades. Satan had no choice but to agree, and so the devil was set free. Well the years passed by. Time always wins. Eventually the hard drinking took its toll on Jack and he died in pain. And Jack found himself at the gate of Saint Peter in heaven. But he was stopped. And Saint Peter said, Jack, because of your drinking and sinful life of deceit, you shall never be allowed in heaven. So Jack was immediately spirited down to hell. But there he saw his old drinking buddy, the devil, once again, and Satan said, I have to fulfill my promise, Jack. You shall never be admitted here. And so Jack was not admitted to heaven or hell. And the devil, with his eerie, vindictive grin, tossed a fiery ember into an old hollowed-out turnip and gave it to Jack. And the devil said, You shall miserably wander the earth forever. Never at rest. Always weary with this lantern. Your only light, a warning to all those fools who think they can somehow outsmart God and the devil. And to this day, on some dark, clear nights, especially around Halloween, you'll catch perhaps a glimpse of old stingy Jack with his lantern drifting about the hills and glens. All he really wants is a rest that shall never come. Because he is doomed, doomed to this fate for all time. Those who see his apparition shudder and rush their children inside his old stingy Jack with his lantern. Or as we now call him, Jack of the Lantern or Jack-O'Lantern. And that is the story of the Jack-O'Lantern. Happy Halloween, everyone. There you go, and now you know the story of the Jack-O'Lantern. That's why we take a pumpkin and carve a face in it and hollow it out and put a candle inside. So they say. And you know really whether or not you understand the meaning of all these weird things that we do around holidays and why we do them, all the exact origins. Sometimes all that matters is just the effect that something has. Just the atmosphere it creates. We don't have to condense everything down to some kind of a a left brain sort of hardcore practical reason. We just like the feel of something. It's more of that subjective atmospheric impression that we get about something that we do, like the smell of wood smoke on a crisp October night. As you're having an ale and there is some ghoulish apparition floating down the street. And I like capturing the fun of all that in words best I can. You know, growing up in Asheville, North Carolina, Asheville is in the heart of the Blue Ridge Mountains in western North Carolina. And so our seasons there are very distinct. You have four clear-cut seasons. Summer is summer, fall is fall, spring is spring, and winter is winter. And not to say that the whole weather system's not screwy these days, but you know, a lot of places don't have distinctive weather like that. When I was in Puerto Rico, for example, it was basically summer year-round. And then there are other parts of the U.S., you know, Lauren is from Texas, and she was telling me you know in near Texas where she grew up, there weren't many uh many seasons and stuff like you have, certainly in these temperate uh regions like around the Blue Ridge Mountains and the Smoky Mountains. So I uh have always thought that where I grew up was uh probably one of the more quintessential Halloween-oriented towns when October 31st was on the horizon. In fact, I always have been told that you have to remember when the Europeans came over here to settle, the first place they tried to settle was North Carolina. And as I mentioned in my one of my last podcasts, the settlers all vanished. It's now known as the Lost Colony, nobody knows what happened to them. And then eventually, not long after that, there were some settlers that uh came in a little north of what we now call North Carolina to Virginia and against all odds were able to to take route and to create the first successful um uh settlement there at Jamestown and Virginia. So my point is that the neck of the woods where I'm from is that area where all the first Europeans went to, even the Spaniards went through there uh on their way up from Florida. And so I have been told that in North Carolina there are more people of Scottish descent than there are in Scotland. Because the Scots-Irish, they really felt comfortable in Western North Carolina because the land looks very much like the land over there. So it sh it just goes to show why North Carolina, Western North Carolina in particular, would be one of those places that would have closer ties to the Gaelic, Celtic, old, ancient, you know, old world traditions related to Soin and the Harvest Festival, etc. So I tried to capture some of that in this novel that I wrote years ago called The Evil in Asheville, because the word Asheville has the word evil right in the middle of it. A-S-H-E, V-I-L-L-E. And uh it's a nice big thick novel. Let's see, it's uh looks like it's 340 pages, something like that. The Evil in Asheville. You can get this thing on Amazon.com and everybody just loves it. But there is um the book takes place right around Halloween. And in fact, you know what? Let me just do this. I'm gonna read to you the back of the book. Asheville has a secret. It stays locked away in a room deep within a demonic castle, looming darkly above the city below. Few know what it is, and those who do are afraid to say. They call it simply the horror. It has brought malign wealth and unchallenged power to those who control it. Unchallenged, that is, until he came along. He was a stranger, as steely and mysterious as the castle itself. No one knows his name or the place he calls home, but he will do whatever he must to face the sinister forces lurking within the Gothic fortress walls. Through land, air, and water he will struggle to reach his goal, unraveling the city's bitter enigmas along the way, shrouded by mystique, sorcery, and the towering Blue Ridge Mountains, he has a fateful rendezvous with unspeakable wickedness. His life at stake, an entire region against him, he'll go to any lengths to find and destroy the evil in Asheville. Yeah. If you're not running to Amazon right now, tripping over your cat, spilling your coffee, to punch the buy it now button on the evil in Asheville, a novel by Mwa, then I I have to question your priorities a little bit. But anyway, here is this section of the book that I wrote where I was describing Halloween settling in, what it's like where I'm from, on October the 31st. Here is a passage, and this is one of those that I read last year, so I'm just gonna replay it for you. Here is me reading this passage from my novel The Evil in Asheville. October 31st. It was like the earth had died for a night, and on its last exhale, as the life slipped away, the darkness of the other world had oozed into the void left behind. Ever so gently the sun had submerged into the grave of the horizon, leaving behind a cold blue world to fend for itself. The leaves and trees were dry and crackly, and the air was so thin that it could not restrain the spirits of the dead, unleashing them into the helpless realm of the living. The color black had never looked blacker, and the lustrous moon above, a mangy cat at the side of the road, and the fire in a jack-o'-lantern's eyes never looked more sinister. The sky above felt bigger and bleaker than before, its infinite mystery overwhelming, and within each shadow, a spectral predator lurked and waited, watching, always watching. But amongst the more substantial, underlying malevolence of the night, frivolities danced about its crust. There were rubber bats flapping from bands of elastic, fabric ghosts hanging from trees, grinning gap-toothed pumpkins at every doorstep, and the people, ah, the people. It was like the world had turned inside out for a night, and all of society filled the streets. Both children and adults were decked in costumes of every kind, witches, goblins, werewolves, Frankenstein monsters, and grotesque, slashed faces strolled every lane. Plastic cauldrons of candy sweets abounded. Houses were mummified with soaring rolls of toilet paper. Dry ice fog rolled off green fountains of punch, and floating apples were bobbed for from wide germ-filled vats. In ghoulish garb, storytellers sat around lapping campfires, relating creepy tales of the past. Stories of hooks and hitchhikers, spook-infested houses, heads in bags, cold-blooded murders, and pranks gone terribly wrong. All of them true, of course. And at Helen's Bridge, teens gathered to spot the ghostly mistress, perhaps to find her handprint burned permanently into the finish of their cars. At other places, like the secluded, vacant water tower, the open cut, or spivy mountain, some of the more bold search to find Satanists absorbed in their cursed rites, a human sacrifice splayed before them. Young men, intrepid and dashing in their capes and masks, competed for the favors of young women dressed seductively in the revealing costumes of morbid tempresses. Smoke, candy, mischief, tales, spirits, ancient evil, and the crisp air. This was Halloween. That's what it was like in Asheville growing up, for me, around Halloween, October the thirty-first. Um so if you enjoyed that, y you might have more of an idea of uh again like why I got into spooky things, ghosts, UFOs, cryptids, all that kind of business. Um it's kind of like Halloween year-round to a certain degree. But you know, even even if it's not spooky, it it still captures this idea of opening your mind to other realms and dimensions and possibilities. And you know, I love to watch these you know, I have my list of Halloween movies that I watch every year. I like to watch um well, like the old Disney Legend of Sleepy Hollow, which is narrated by Bing Crosby. I like to watch the Garfield Christmas or listen to me, the Garfield Halloween special. I can't remember exactly what it's called, but if you go to YouTube and you just type in Garfield Halloween, it'll come up. And uh I love to watch this movie called Tales of Halloween, which is an anthology movie that it's not that that old. It just came out a few years ago. But I don't watch stuff like I don't watch horror movies. I really don't. I just for one thing, horror movies have they're kind of boring to me because they're just so predictable. And uh I mean I like the shining, that's probably my favorite horror movie actually. But like the slasher type movies I watched that stuff as a kid, but uh I'm more interested in I don't know, a little more of a thought-provoking angle on uh on how Halloween can be incorporated into a great story. And so uh all that kind of stuff I'm sure helped to inspire me to write my book, Joshua Warren's Gallery of Mystery and Suspense. I wrote when I was, you know, 13, 14, published around the time I was fifteen or so. And I recently had some copies of this book that I found available for sale on my website, joshua pwarren.com. But they're all sold out. Uh however, I am looking into turning this into an e-book if you're interested. And so uh if you would like to know whether or not I do that uh and when when it you know what this what the deal is gonna be. Very simple. The way you stay informed with everything that I do, if you like what I do and you're curious, sign up for my free e-newsletter. Okay, it takes you two seconds. Go to joshua pwarren.com, joshua parren.com You'll see right there on the front, you can put your email address in there, you hit the button, you will instantly receive a digital good luck charm. Plus, I'm about to send you guys something really kick-ass uh very soon to coincide with my new podcast. I'll tell you more about that later. And uh and that way I can keep you informed. And I'm also gonna be giving away some free money again here soon. You know, I I randomly spontaneously do that from time to time. So sign up for my newsletter and you'll know when this and other books are available. But uh in this little book called Joshua Warren's Gallery of Mystery and Suspense, I wrote a couple of poems I'd like to share with you. I'm gonna read them for you right now. Of course, on my last podcast, I read some wonderful poems by Jack Proletsky. Uh his book, Nightmares Poems to Trouble Your Sleep. So I am certainly no Jack Proletsky. But when I was around thirteen, fourteen, I wrote these poems. The first one here is called The Halloween When wind is crisp and air is cold, the time has come of tales I've told, of warlocks spells and women's screams. The night I speak is Halloween. 'Tis on this night God set aside for Satan to redeem his pride, to use the spell the witches hold to free all of the condemned souls. This witch's Sabbath it may seem, would only come upon one's dream. But on one night of every year the demon's horror shall appear, and spirits will fill all the sky to roam the place that they have died. The cemetery is a place that wise men leave with quickened pace, for once the spirits have appeared, the fate of man you will not hear. So raise your crosses if through rain and garlic every window pane, for when the witching hour is here, the fool is all who does not fear. And then I wrote this poem also in Joshua Warren's Gallery of Mystery and Suspense. This poem is a little bit longer. It's called The Walk Down Stockburn Lane. Right in front of left now left in front of right. My heart was pounding wildly as I walked the lane that night. I remembered all the stories as it drizzled in the rain, the stories of the hauntings as I walked down Stockburn Lane. The sky was dark and cloudy, not a single soul around, and the shadows they engulfed me as the blackness stretched to ground. My brow was wet and steamed, my throat extremely dry, and my adrenaline, as I recall, had reached an awful high. I dreaded all the spots that I would pass through darkened rain, the haunted spots along the walk the walk down Stockburn Lane. It was then that I next saw it, the first sight there to see, nestled shortly off the lane you see, there stood the hangman's tree, a dark and dismal oak, amongst unshadowed care, saturated with the spirits of the criminals hung there. A limp a lump of fear was in my throat, disabling my sigh, I quickly stepped up my pace and swiftly passed on by. A fraction of my fear was gone, I became a bit more sane. But dreaded spots were still to come, the spots on Stockburn Lane. Now as my walk proceeded, the rain was pouring hard, and up ahead I saw the next it was the old graveyard. A powerful bolt of lightning struck in the distant land. Twas then I glimpsed the tombstones and the hauntings were at hand. I heard a shrieking screaming, and in terror froze at that, but in the lightning's afterstrikes I saw 'twas just a cat. I upped my paranoid pace, frozen with fear and rain, and I evermore bedreaded so this walk down Stockburn Lane. My walk it seemed eternal, an everlasting hell The cold and rain did weaken me, and once I almost fell. Lightning flashed and thunder cracked from far up in the sky, and finally through tired run I passed the graveyard by. Now up ahead lies one more spot of deadly rumored tale, just one more spot to overcome, to conquer live and well. Twas the scene of an accident that took place long ago. A stagecoach ran out of control and plunged the drop below. Now when the wreck was found, not one man was left undead, and their spirits still roam at the scene, or so the legend said. I now arrived upon the scene, now lushly grown and black, and the place it lingered on me like a hot breath on my back. I tightly closed my eyes and pressed on in frightful hurt, till I felt my feet leave cobblestone and run to rock and dirt. I opened up my eyes surprisingly to find that in my fearful hurry I had left the lane behind. I sighed with great relievement, my heart calmed to a pace. Finally I had passed it, that superstitious place. I continued homeward therefore, with just drizzling left of rain, to leave behind the haunted spots of the walk down Stockburn Lane. So hey, there you go. Again, 1314 when I uh crank that one out. Joshua Warren's Gallery of Mystery and Suspense. There are some short stories in here. Uh Willaker's Bones, Troll's Shop, Anthropagate, Knight of the Grim Reaper, The Shadow Man, The Deepest Grave of All, The Legend of Buzzard Rock within the Tombstone Riding. Some good uh pretty good stuff here, really. Maybe uh maybe adaptable now. Maybe Netflix will come calling. Well, hopefully that helps to get you a little bit more into the Halloween spirit. But you know what, folks? I have a brand new book that I just finished. I just got it back from the printers, and I'm going to be telling you finally what this book is about. Yes, it's spooky, it's got ghosts, it's got aliens, it's got some of those things that are a little too bizarre to neatly put into a category. It's got all that stuff. And uh I'm going to be officially revealing it. Oh, I'm thinking maybe um probably Wednesday is what I'm thinking. We'll see. We'll see. But definitely in the next few days. So you want to make sure that you stay in touch with this podcast however you do it, however, you get notified. You want to subscribe and do that. And um, they're still telling me that October 22nd is the goal date to launch my new podcast. Let me explain something to you, by the way. I'm gonna give you a little bit more information about this new podcast. You might be wondering, like, well, Josh, why is this taking so long for this thing to come out? Well, it's it's because that it's not just my podcast, an entirely new podcast network is being created right now, and it's being created by some very special people. And so my show is going to be one of the top shows on this network, but I'm not the only talent on this network, okay? So there are going to be a variety of kick-ass shows. And so what I'm doing is um I'm letting you know this because uh getting a network off the ground is is no small thing. There are a lot of there's a lot of coordination that needs to be done with each and every show, and then the network at large. So hopefully everything will be locked into place and will be ready to hit the green button on this thing October 22nd. I will let you know as soon as I know for for certain. If it takes longer, it's not that big of a deal, frankly. I mean, I'm I'm doing my part, everything I can, but um, this is when I when I finally give you the whole story and I tell you who's behind this and what's going on, you'll go, oh, okay, now I get it. Now I understand why you've been so secretive about this and why that you've been treating this as such a big deal. So um, October 22nd is what they're telling me right now, and I will keep you informed. But regardless, folks, hey, you gotta keep up with the show by going to joshua pwarren.com. JoshuaPWarren.com. Sign up for that free e-newsletter. Tell everybody you know about this podcast. Tell them to go to the Curiosity Shop at joshuapeewarren.com. Check out kick-ass things there. You will not find anywhere else in the world. I have one more product that I'm bringing out this year. I at least I'm planning on it. And it's not a manifestation product. The psionic dematerializer was my last manifestation product of this year. But this other product is gonna be pure fun. And actually, there might be a little bit of a manifestation element to it as well, but you'll see what I mean. I've got one more project, uh, excuse me, product that I'm hoping to get out there next month. So you will never guess what this is in a million years. It's it's a this is something that I created that's completely original. Okay, nobody's ever produced anything like this to my knowledge. Okay. So sign up for the e-newsletter, joshua pwarren.com. Go to the Curiosity Shop, see the wild stuff there, and click the link to this podcast called Joshua P. Warren Daily. Always short, always free, uncensored, independent, commercial free. You can subscribe to this show through various uh formats and platforms, you know, iTunes, Stitcher, whatever your thing is, iHeart, or just follow me on Twitter at Joshua P. Warren, at Joshua P. Warren, and I will usually tweet when a new one is available. So that is it for this particular edition of the podcast. Hope you've enjoyed it. Hope you've had some fun. Thank you for listening. Thank you for your interest and support. Thank you for staying curious, and I will talk to you again soon.