Enchanted Evenings and Digital Dilemmas in the World of Witches

My tranquil basement studio, typically a haven for creativity, was recently pierced by the disquieting antics of my usually silent cat, Utica, sending shivers down my spine as I recounted an eerie stay at the Roff House. This unsettling opening sets the stage for a discussion swirling with mystery and charged with the urgency of current events, as we tackle the heated debate surrounding the potential TikTok ban. With the vibrant community at stake, I dissect the complexities of the Chinese government's involvement and invite you to weigh in on this pressing matter. Moreover, we shine a spotlight on Codie Crowley, a TikToker whose explorations of time and space hauntings have truly captivated me, hinting at the enthralling possibility of her joining us for a deeper dive into the supernatural.

As we transition from the tangible to the celestial, I unravel personal zodiac experiences, weaving in the enchanting notion that a newborn's first cry might echo a past life's memory. My dog Miley's interruption infuses a dash of levity before we return to the mystical pull of Salem through the lens of author Codie Crawley's journey from budding writer to her dream of witchy living. As our episode wanes, we reflect on the enthralling charm of magic and witchcraft that captivates us during intimate gatherings with friends, and invite you to contribute your own questions and curiosities to our ongoing conversation. Prepare to be enthralled—and perhaps even enchanted—as we probe the veiled corners of our world together.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Hey everyone. It's Melissa, your host at Strange, strange Beyond Insane. It is now 4.41 am. 4.41, that's a lucky number, well, 4.4. So at 4.44 that will be even luckier.

Speaker 1: 0:16

Again took a nap after work today. The work week has really caught up with me and I slept. My hour-long nap turned into, I believe, almost five hours. So, yeah, I just got a head start on my podcast episodes. Okay, so the last episode I did.

Speaker 1: 0:36

I was getting really creeped out down here talking about Christina and I our stay in Wetseca, illinois, with the Roth House. Just a recap on that. Yeah, I never get really creeped out down the basement by myself while I'm podcasting, but I jumped up a couple times and my cat, utica the oldest cat that I have. I adopted him from 12 Mile in Utica, literally in the middle of the street, years ago. That's why his name is Utica Utica, 12 Mile, actually, to be exact. He is not a vocal cat at all and he was being very vocal down here and at one point, right when I had ended the podcast, there was a growling coming from the back room and it literally scared the shit out of me. And when I turned around, utica was just laying behind me and he was just meowing, like he sounded like he was in pain. So I was like, okay, that's freaky, and there's a bunch of black screens down here computer screens, tvs and then there's a mirror behind me that's lit up my salon mirror and I just could not look at any of that stuff. I just put my head down and I'm like, utica, come on, let's go upstairs, bud. And he normally you can't get him out of the basement and he literally ran up in front of me and as soon as I opened up the door going up into the house, he just booked it. So I don't know what was going on down here.

Speaker 1: 2:11

Okay, so let me start off this episode with saying, fuck the TikTok ban, fuck that they better not. I don't see it happening this year. Actually, words of my husband, of course you know from Paul. He was like there's no way they're going to do an election year. I have mixed singles about this, like mixed feelings. You know the Chinese, the whole Chinese thing. I get it Like I think they're misfiring the point. They're saying that they're not banning it, but yet they passed it. You know, basically to ban it. But yeah, fuck that. We all love TikTok, like I love TikTok. I, like you know, maybe not physically, but I meet people on TikTok all the time. I mean, I've had like Mr420, he was on here trying to get Agony the Clown on here. I actually have to message him. He did say he's interested in coming on have another girl that I follow. That will be later in the episode, but I wanna start with this little recap, this video, and this is the news girl and this is about the TikTok ban. All right, let me set up my phone.

Speaker 2: 3:33

Government is signaling TikTok probably cannot be sold, no matter what bill the United States House and Senate pass. That means the Chinese government would rather see the app banned for the 170 million Americans who use it than allow a US company to own it. That's what the Chinese government just signaled at a press conference just after the House of Representatives overwhelmingly passed a bill this week that would force TikTok's parent company by dance to divest or sell its interest in TikTok to a US company or face a ban in five months. Look, the rules for businesses in China are very different than they are in the United States. Everything is controlled by the Chinese government, and this isn't the first time that Beijing has taken this position.

Speaker 2: 4:18

Specifically on TikTok, the CCP said the exact same thing when former President Trump tried to force by dance to divest. Back then, the Chinese government determined any sale of TikTok would involve exporting Chinese technology like TikTok's incredible algorithm. So a sale must be approved by the government. And in 2020, they put content recommendation algorithms like TikTok's on an export control list and said because of that, they would not allow the sale. And it seems like they're saying the exact same thing again. You see, the algorithm is the secret sauce that makes TikTok TikTok and without it the app just doesn't work the same way and that makes it incredibly valuable and the Chinese government knows it and they don't want to give it up.

Speaker 1: 5:08

I mean, come on, like what the fuck you know, universal Records is taking all these musicians, music down very popular, well-known ones and even independent artists. And now this shit. I mean, come on, like you cannot fucking take TikTok away from us. Do I think it's gonna happen? No, not permanently. Do I think there's gonna be changes? Yeah, probably, but anyways, that's my thoughts on that. So fuck the TikTok ban.

Speaker 1: 5:42

If you guys feel the same, you guys know how to get a hold of me Ghost Sisters 2124 at gmailcom. Find me on TikTok. All you have to do is look up Strange Durange Band Insane. This podcast is on all platforms that you listen to. I'm sorry that you listen to podcasts on. Okay, now I want to follow with a chick that I follow on TikTok. I believe her name is Kody Crowley, I think that's how you say her name, but I'm actually gonna message her and I would love to interview her on here. I just love her style. I love everything. She lives in Salem Massachusetts. Just a really fun girl. So I'm going to start off with playing this.

Speaker 3: 6:34

Some hauntings are not the ghosts of a dead person, but two living people communicating through time and space. Okay, look, I'm gonna need you to get real cheaped up for this one. Okay, take a little bubble on the bong and then get back to me. Alright, you stoned, you ready, let's go. There's this guy, ken Webster, who wrote this book called the Vertical Plane, and it's about how he bought an old English cottage and when he moved into the cottage he bought a word processor, and this was 1984. So he bought word processor just to write on and it had no connection to the internet. And I think, once again, it's 1984.

Speaker 3: 7:08

Ken Webster puts this word processor in his old English cottage and then suddenly all these messages start appearing, okay, on Ken's word processor, and he's like what's going on here? And Ken starts to realize that he's communicating with someone who claims to be living in the 1500s. And it's not a ghost baby, it's a man living in the 1500s in the same cottage. And he's communicating with Ken through the word processor, which he called the light box or Leem's Boyst. Okay, and he gave Ken specific details about his life. Okay, he said his name was Lucas, he said that he was living in the 1500s and Ken was able to corroborate a lot of the historic details that Lucas was giving him. Eventually, lucas revealed that that was actually a pseudonym and that his real name was Thomas Hardin and that he'd given Ken a pseudonym because he was afraid that the Leem's Boyst might have been the work of the devil, right, but now he'd come to trust Ken, which is like super fucking cute. When are we getting the buddy time travel comedy about these two? You know what I mean? Is this starring Seth Rogen and James Franco? Is James Franco? He's canceled, right? Never mind. Anyway, using the name Thomas Hardin and the information that he'd already provided through the Leem's Boyst, ken Webster was able to corroborate tons of the historic details that were shared, and he even found someone by the name of Thomas Hardin who became Vicar in 1551.

Speaker 3: 8:31

After the time that Ken was communicating with him. Okay, because Thomas Hardin said through the Leem's Boyst that it was 1546, where he was coming from. Okay, and, by the way, there were also things that would like move around the house and there was other like poltergeisty things that were going on at the same time. So it's easy to see how you know things. Moving communications appearing on this word processor would seem like the work of a ghost, right? But according to Ken Webster, it was not a ghost. It was a man that was alive in the 1500s that was communicating with him through time and space. Okay, how could this be possible? Well, take another bottom here. Okay, though we perceive time as linear, it's actually not moving in any direction at all. We're all little fish swimming in time. I mean, this is a very Pisces analogy, right, but stick with me, we're all little fish swimming in time. Time is not a river, but an aquarium. Okay, space is like the tank, time is the water that fills it.

Speaker 3: 9:26

And the water that fills the tank, aka. Time is everywhere, all around us, right? Or else there'd be nothing for us to move through. So time itself does not flow, but allows us to move within it. So the cycles that we observe have nothing to do with time, except that time allows them to happen. Times all around us.

Speaker 3: 9:45

And because time itself isn't moving, a perception of time can vary, right, that's why an hour doing something you hate, like maybe an hour at your job not my job, baby, this is my job, I'm at my job right now. But maybe an hour at your job might feel very long, right, very arduous. It might feel like it lasts forever, whereas an hour of having fun and hanging out, like we are right now, it just flies right by, baby. Alright, we're already at five minutes, okay, and at five minutes did it just snap? I hope that it just went by. I hope this isn't boring you, okay, anyway. So it stands to reason if time isn't fixed or linear and it can move in any direction. So can we move in any direction through time? Right, and indeed we can. My birthday twin fellow, piede Pisces.

Speaker 3: 10:31

Albert Einstein proved this with the theory of relativity. As it happens, einstein's calculations found that time and space are connected and that weird things happen when we move at high rates of speed Our mass increases, our length decreases and the passage of time slows down. Like, did you know that if you fly on a supersonic jet, you're gonna age less rapidly by a few fractions of a second than the people who are on the ground? Okay, honestly, no one tell the Kardashians, because they're gonna start manning supersonic jets. Alright, they take a couple fractions of a second off their aging process. You know what I mean. Totally deranged enough to become a billionaire beauty hacker, right?

Speaker 3: 11:06

While traveling at supersonic speeds has only a small effect on the passage of time, if we were able to travel at the speed of light, the full implications of Einstein's theory would become unignorable. Suppose, for example, that you took a trip to our nearest star system, proxima Centurai, at the speed of light. You would perceive the time that it takes to get there as roughly 10 years, but when you arrived back on Earth, centuries would have passed and everyone you've ever known would be dead. Okay, and you would have essentially traveled through time into the future. That's why many of the stars that we see in our sky have been dead for millennia burnt out.

Speaker 3: 11:46

Okay, we're seeing them burning there, but they're not there anymore. Light has only just reached our eyes across time and space, and that's also why old places always seem to be haunted. Okay, because, listen, if time's all around us like water and aquarium, then not only could we travel through it, but we could see through it as well. Right, but what if some hot things are not actually visitations from spirits, but are us looking through the glass of time into the past? I know, I think it holds water.

Speaker 1: 12:20

Okay.

Speaker 1: 12:21

So again, that's Cody Crawley. Go visit her on Facebook. I'm sorry, not on Facebook, we don't like Facebook anymore, tic-tac. Okay, so I want to add to that. So she says that she's Pisces and her former other scientist that she loves.

Speaker 1: 12:37

So one of my best friends, kevin, that's been on here, he's also Pisces. And then his partner, michael, is, I think, on the cusp of a Pisces too. So both of them are very smart. They're very, very good at math. You know, kevin's like a mechanic. He's awesome with cars, with numbers. He should actually be selling cars because he's so good with numbers, like he can take anyone's car, look up the van, know the value of it, this and that, break it down, know the value of this, of that. And then my husband is also on the cusp of a Pisces and he's amazing with math. So, yeah, that's just a little added something there. Obviously I don't have Pisces in my stars because I cannot math. I can only girl math, probably why I'm a hairstylist. So anyways, I do want to add to her little theory. I was actually talking to my husband the other night we were having just like these weird long talks, if you will and I said you know, paul, there's a little theory that's out there and I you know, you know how I am. I cusp of a Libra, so I'm very balanced. I see all the perspectives equally, but this is a theory that I love.

Speaker 1: 13:53

Speaking of death, so when a baby is born, comes out of the birth canal or C-section, however, the minute that they come out, they're screaming and crying, wailing out. What if that is your? Like them crying? Is them realizing that their last life is over, like their previous life, like they remember it, and they're like, oh my God, I died. And then, the minute that they see their mom and their dad and everyone else, all of a sudden they're smiling because they forgot their old life and now this is a new beginning and now they're living their new life, right. So just think about that. You come out crying oh my God, my life's over, that's my old life, oh, my new life is starting. So that's like a really cool theory.

Speaker 1: 14:45

And he was like wow, I really like that. I never thought of that. I was like yeah, just you know, food for thought. Who's down here with me? Oh, miley, my dog came down. Okay, at least we know what that noise is, unlike earlier. So this, cody Crowley. This is where I really took a liking to her, this video, so I'm gonna play this how she started, and I've always been into writing my whole entire life. Obviously, again was not good in the math department, but writing skills are on par. This is obviously why I have a podcast. I like to write up episodes and talk and I love how she explains how she got into this and since she was little, she was very persistent on what she wanted to do. So I'm gonna play this next video.

Speaker 3: 15:42

In my opinion, all right, you know how, like a group of crows, when they get together it's called the murder of crows and a group of fish all together Is a school of fish. A group of little girls all together. Maybe that's just a coven. All right, because why is it that every time a bunch of little girls get together, they start doing magic? You know what I mean? Every slumber party I've ever been to, we did some kind of magic. All right, we did Bloody Mary, we did laser feather surface board. We did, you know, ouija board. Obviously, we read each other's tarot cards. You know, we did all these little divination games. It was just what we did every time we got together. Why was that our instinct when we got together? And why are men terrified of it? Because the little boys, when we would come into school and we would start telling them, you know, like, about our slumber parties, they were scared. They were like you don't miss me with that witch shit.

Speaker 3: 16:38

All right, I'm gonna tell you guys about one of my favorite little witch games that girls used to play during the Victorian age. Okay, so in Victorian times, girls would get together and they would play this little parlor game where they would have a candle on one hand and a mirror in the other and they would walk backwards up a flight of stairs. The only source of light would be from the candle and in the flickering light of the candle against the mirror, the face of your future husband would appear on the staircase behind you in the dark. Okay, I actually played this game on YouTube one time On my Bloody Mary episode. I played this game in my basement. It was very creepy, but it was a super spooky game, I feel.

Speaker 1: 17:16

Like to me when I met yeah, so her and I definitely would have been friends. We always did the stuff too, I mean anything to get a scare right. And then the ones who weren't into scary stuff I was like and they're kind of boring right.

Speaker 2: 17:34

Well, back in the United.

Speaker 1: 17:35

States. But I want to pull her back up and let you guys hear Well brought me to Salem is the fact that I Okay, well, let me restart this.

Speaker 3: 17:44

It's a personal policy of mine. Well, brought me to Salem is the fact that I it's a personal policy of mine to always do what I say I'm gonna do. Okay. And when I was a kid, I used to say when I grow up, I'm going to be a writer and I'm gonna live in Salem Massachusetts. Okay, and here I am, baby, I live in Salem Massachusetts, and I had my book coming out August 6th from Disney High period.

Speaker 3: 18:07

Here was eventual ditch, all right. So you know, I said I was gonna do these things and that's what I did. There is a third thing that I used to say I was gonna do, which is that I was gonna own a Victorian house with a cemetery in the backyard, which I haven't achieved. I haven't achieved that one yet, still working on that one, and you know what the thing is. I feel like the decade that I spent trying to get my book published probably less arduous than attempting to buy a whole house with a cemetery in the backyard in this economy. Baby, all right, maybe we're gonna get there someday. We're gonna get there someday, all right.

Speaker 1: 18:41

Yeah, so she's awesome. So her book again, you can pre-order it, which I am actually in the middle of doing during the podcast. Here lies a vengeful bitch and she's already working on the second book. I admire her so much, the fact that she owns her weirdness. She's super cute, fun, high energy, bubbly. She has a Britney Murphy feel which I absolutely adore Britney Murphy. In fact, when I leave this world, I hope I meet Britney Murphy, one of my favorite actresses. But yeah, I really, really, really admire her.

Speaker 1: 19:18

I guess that's always what I wanted to do too, like I'm more like journalist. But with what I'm doing now in the podcast and doing all of the paranormal investigations and the researching, I mean I guess I'm kind of living my dream. If I could do this for a living, like I say, all the time, this is what I would be fucking doing 24 seven, writing, researching, investigating, you know all different haunted locations, traveling, but of course, and that would be in a perfect world. So for now I'm gonna stick to the podcast and still do all my spooky adventures with my friends and just enjoy life while living. However, I, like I said, I'm gonna pre-order her book. I do wanna try to get her on the podcast to interview her, and she does live in Salem and you guys know from the episodes.

Speaker 1: 20:17

Last summer I visited Salem and absolutely loved it. There's still I mean, I just scratched off like the surface there's a lot that I still need to do there. I also wanna make it to Connecticut, which isn't far from there. So yeah, that is what this episode is about tonight. So if you guys have any questions, comments, suggestions, anything again, you guys can get ahold of me, you know, on the email. So ghost sisters2124 at Gmail. You can also look me up on TikTok. If you type in strangedrangebjbndnsane, you'll find me and you guys have a good one and tune in. We'll be talking soon.