Prologue: How a Broken Toilet Seat Changed My Mind About the Afterlife

It's a question you'll inevitably find yourself asking if you listen to this podcast or even engage in conversation with me, "Seth, how the hell did we end up here?" In fact, that phrase was nearly chosen as the quote for my high school yearbook. Instead, I went with "If you can't handle me at my worst, then you sure as hell don't deserve me at my best.” Thank you Marilyn Monroe for seeing and hearing me.

Regardless, it was an experience with a psychic medium that I dragged my feet to thinking I was about to be scrammed and walked out thinking, "My entire life has been a lie." And from that moment on, I was hooked.

Written and hosted by Seth Borkowski in collaboration with The Daily Drunk Mag.

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Music, sound design, editing, and additional voices by Louis Palfrey—mastermind behind your smooth listening experience (and the reason you won’t hear me open-mouth coughing). Check out more of his work at louispalfrey.com.

Transcript

Hello my fellow weirdos! When I was a kid I once asked my Mom, “What happens when you die?” and she said “you’re buried six feet under ground and that’s it seth.” That meaningful Mother son moment right there - that was the foundation of my skepticism and this is a podcast called The Spiritual Skeptic by The Daily Drunk mag.

These days I consider myself a skeptic in recovery, but I do try to maintain a degree of skepticism, mainly for my own sanity, while exploring the many, many, batshit crazy rabbit holes we’ll evaluate in this podcast such as different alien species, reincarnation, conspiracy theories like human cloning (I know-I know, I said it was batshit crazy) and plenty more.

The first time anything remotely spiritual was on my radar was when my girlfriend, now wife, saw a psychic medium. I never had any belief in mediumship so when she mentioned wanting to connect with her grandpa I viewed the experience as her seeing a scammy magician which in its own right could be fun, who doesn’t love magic? At the time, I had a ton of stomach issues and had already undergone a colonoscopy and was allergy tested for over 76 foods. Doctors told me nothing was wrong and that I needed some anti-anxiety medication. I’m an anxious jew so this wasn’t a surprise, of course I needed Lexapro, but I was still frustrated like come on doc, that’s the best you got?! I’d invested my life savings into pepto bismol by that time that sweet sweet pink nectar. Hm, gets me every time that elusive pepto bismol.

So, the medium my wife saw went on an unprompted rant specifically about my stomach (mind you, I wasn’t even in the room). She talked about how I needed to be very conscious about what I was putting in my body because she could apparently see I was having a tough time. 

When my wife, her name is Ali I’m tired of saying wife, told me this I honestly thought it sounded insane. Why the hell was this stranger talking about my stomach? Mind your own business, David Blaine or whatever you are, but over time - I was convinced to book an appointment.

And that my friends, was the beginning of some eye opening experiences you know, talking to the fucking dead through the living. I remember when the appointment first started, which was all over the phone, she said she wouldn’t remember any of it since the information would be coming from my guides and I could think “god please give me a refund” Then she said that my grandpa was stepping forward. Allegedly, he was showing her his hands, telling her that he used to work a lot which was true, he was known for being a workaholic and then she asked me, was your grandpa a Holocaust survivor? That actually really tripped me out because not only was it seldom talked about among my own family because none of us are capable of acknowledging our real emotions, but it’s not something you could google or bing, if you’re a freak like me and use bing. And that was like 30 seconds into the session

So throughout our session she was giving me guidance and advice and at one point she said, “I’m going to do a body scan” to which I thought, “this bitch is crazy” and suddenly she starts recommending all of these dietary changes based on this apparent body scan. But what did I have to lose? So I followed her instructions—chicory root in my coffee, spirulina pills, I put food coloring looking drops in my water with weird ingredients like, wormwood, chlorella and licorice root which were meant to help my liver, intestines and adrenal glands—the list goes on and on. Low and behold, no more crazy stomach pains for ya boi. 

Of course a skeptic could say something like, all right, she gave you a couple recommendations and your stomach pain improved - it’s a miracle, diarrhea boy and that's a tough nickname for you to call me, but it’s not unfair.

Sticking with bathroom issues, I recently broke my toilet seat. I was sitting on top of it bandaging a foot injury when the seat snapped in half. This was a brutal realization that I needed to hit the gym. Now, I saw a different medium shortly after my toilet seat fiasco (and for background I lost my father a few years ago) and in the middle of the session the medium started laughing hysterically and seemed to be puzzled while allegedly communicating with my Dad. I’m just sitting there, watching a grown woman cackle while talking to the air saying to my Dad like two friends at a bar, “Come on now, I’m not gonna say that!” Finally, she goes “OK I don’t know why your Dad is saying this, but I’m just gonna say it because you never know with spirit, but he’s showing me a broken toilet seat, does that mean anything to you?”

I wish this trailer wasn’t mostly an evaluation of my bathroom habits, but that toilet seat moment was yet another moment of validation in the path to understanding this crazy fucking world. And mediumship or the idea that people on this world can do inhuman or dare I say, alien things was merely the beginning in a fascinating, logic defying journey into the universe, my friends - so thank you for being here and let's get weird.