Haunted Appalachia – Ep. 118

[00:00:00] Odd Trails is a true paranormal podcast. If you have a story to share, send it to stories at

[00:00:05] oddtrails.com. I'm not. You know your life is just a dream, don't you?

[00:00:58] This week we're going to be sharing a series of short stories from a single author.

[00:01:03] This episode is titled titled Haunted Appalachia.

[00:01:06] These stories will be told in two parts. I'm going to start things off with part one,

[00:01:10] while Brandon will continue the story after the break with part two.

[00:01:18] I have a lot to share. Most of these stories were told by my family and friends throughout the years,

[00:01:24] along with some of my own encounters in the rural mountains and ridgelines of my county.

[00:01:30] I grew up in eastern Kentucky. Both sides of my family grew up in rural Appalachia, but,

[00:01:37] as with modern times, they moved to a small town nestled here in the valley situated in between rolling hills and deep ridgelines.

[00:01:46] The following stories take place in the Appalachian Mountains.

[00:01:50] It's considered a county, however, the area where my dad's family grew up in, within

[00:01:55] this area, is more like a collection of deep ridges and mountain folks.

[00:01:59] I just want to clear up any confusion that this might be an actual town. During the early days of the settlers, these mountains were home to the Cherokees.

[00:02:10] Many of the cemeteries in this area have around 30-40 graves of Native Americans buried there

[00:02:16] that are marked with stones and rocks.

[00:02:19] Now on to the stories.

[00:02:22] In the 70s, my mom, her aunt, and her little cousins were driving on an empty

[00:02:27] road just outside of town when they reached the top of a hill where an abandoned farmhouse stood.

[00:02:34] They stopped their car in its tracks when they saw a massive saucer-shaped craft hovering over

[00:02:41] the house. This frightened my mother and her aunt.

[00:02:45] They booked it out of there.

[00:02:47] They continued down the mountain, back to town.

[00:02:50] However, when they looked in the rearview mirror, they saw that the craft was now coming

[00:02:54] after them at a high rate of speed.

[00:02:57] It was tailing their car and keeping up with it.

[00:03:00] They attempted multiple times to evade the craft but to no avail. It chased them for over a mile on their way back to town until finally, just at the edge

[00:03:10] of the county road that leads back into town.

[00:03:14] It finally disappeared.

[00:03:15] My mother has told this story at least a hundred times to family and friends.

[00:03:19] Most of them believe her, as they too have seen strange lights in the sky and various

[00:03:24] different areas of the

[00:03:25] community.

[00:03:27] According to my mom, it was gray and almost metallic looking.

[00:03:31] It had red lights all along the edge of the bottom, along with a few green lights on the

[00:03:36] sides.

[00:03:39] This is another story about my mom.

[00:03:41] One night, when she was a child, she was at home with her parents and siblings.

[00:03:46] A man whom her family already knew and were acquainted with,

[00:03:50] barged into the house, scared out of his wits. He lived in a cabin within the woods some miles away.

[00:03:58] During his stay there, he had reported poltergeist activity and even orbs within the property and the house itself.

[00:04:05] But on this night, he went on to tell my grandmother that he was tormented all night by a demon

[00:04:11] who threw pots, pans, glasses, and even furniture at him.

[00:04:16] This went on for almost the entire night.

[00:04:20] He also started to hear knocking and tapping on the sides of the house, as well as thumping

[00:04:25] on the walls and ceiling.

[00:04:27] Finally, he mustered up the nerve to recite the Lord's Prayer in an attempt to rebuke

[00:04:31] it in the name of Jesus Christ.

[00:04:34] This seemed to piss it off even more because the demon's aggression got worse.

[00:04:39] It began hurling even heavier objects at him in an attempt to harm him.

[00:04:45] He ran out of the house and spent around seven to eight hours walking through the woods and

[00:04:50] rural country roads until he found himself at my grandmother's house.

[00:04:55] While on his way to the house, he reported that he could hear footsteps trailing him

[00:05:00] in the woods next to the road.

[00:05:02] But he couldn't see anything. It continued like this for hours until he finally reached their house.

[00:05:10] This next story took place in the 90s.

[00:05:13] There was a white brick house at the top of a small hill in town.

[00:05:18] A man and his wife lived there for several years.

[00:05:20] The couple was in their 40s or 50s.

[00:05:24] One day while my mother was working at a local gas station, where this same woman coincidentally

[00:05:29] worked, the husband called the woman to tell her that something was wrong with the gas

[00:05:33] in the house.

[00:05:35] He said that he was going to look at it in the basement to see if he could fix the problem.

[00:05:40] He went downstairs and lit a match to help him see what happened. Immediately, the house exploded sending rubble everywhere and causing a mass of fire.

[00:05:50] The smoke could be seen all throughout the town.

[00:05:54] The man's body as one might expect in situations like this was blown to pieces.

[00:06:00] Since then, it has become a local legend that the man's spirit haunts the new house that was built on the land where the original stood.

[00:06:08] One of those ghost hunting TV shows actually filmed an episode here because of the experiences of the home's inhabitants.

[00:06:16] They dealt with everything from pots and pans rattling and stuff being thrown around to actual manifestations inside the house.

[00:06:25] But let's move on to my local folklore, myths, and legends from right here in the foothills

[00:06:32] of the Appalachian Mountains of Eastern Kentucky.

[00:06:36] My dad's family lives in a series of ridges and haulers.

[00:06:40] For the sake of this entry, I'll call this place Webb, Kentucky.

[00:06:44] My dad's entire lineage has lived there since the 1800s.

[00:06:49] I have looked into our family tree, and it's full of history.

[00:06:53] This story takes place at my uncle's house.

[00:06:55] It's a two-story log cabin built by a one-armed Irishman.

[00:07:01] My uncle died in 2010 from a massive heart attack on his porch.

[00:07:05] It's been empty for the most part, except for my grandmother's sister who stays there

[00:07:10] during the spring and summer.

[00:07:13] The house itself has had a history of paranormal activity, from disembodied footsteps coming

[00:07:18] from the upstairs rooms to voices and apparitions.

[00:07:23] My dad and his siblings always swore that the house was haunted by the spirit of the

[00:07:28] one-armed man who built the property as well as my deceased uncle.

[00:07:33] But that isn't the only thing that's happened there.

[00:07:37] In the late 90s, my uncle was out one night on one of his nightly hunts.

[00:07:42] He loved spending time out in the woods, coon hunting with his

[00:07:45] pack of hunting dogs. According to the story, something chased him out of the woods that night.

[00:07:52] He said that he could hear somebody or something walking, tailing him through the woods. His coon

[00:07:58] hounds seemed frightened and they wouldn't chase after whatever it was, like usual.

[00:08:04] He fled through the woods as he heard whatever it was chasing him from behind.

[00:08:09] He barely made it home by the skin of his teeth.

[00:08:12] Whatever it was chased him all the way back to his property.

[00:08:16] He retold this story to my family a few weeks after the event while visiting.

[00:08:21] Here's a story about my dad's eldest brother, who left the mountains to live in a nearby

[00:08:27] city. After remarrying, the family kept up with him from time to time, but he did quite well on

[00:08:33] his own. For a while. Unfortunately, in 2016, he was diagnosed with incurable lung cancer and was

[00:08:40] given only a few short months to live.

[00:08:45] Seeing as how he didn't want to die in the city, he decided to move back to what he

[00:08:49] called the Hills of Home.

[00:08:52] He spent a little while trying to find a suitable house or trailer to move his family into.

[00:08:58] After a short while, he finally found one nestled on a very steep hill with a gravel

[00:09:03] road leading all the way up to the house.

[00:09:12] It sat there surrounded by dense dark woods and a backyard that was walled off by a massive rock fence with even more woods surrounding that. The house was a log cabin type build with light brown

[00:09:19] wood covering the outside and a shingled roof. It even had a small hot tub off to the side of a small

[00:09:25] porch. In the front yard, in a medium-sized garden, sat the grave of a stillborn infant,

[00:09:33] a fetus who had died in the 80s and had been buried there ever since.

[00:09:38] I found that extremely odd and unnerving, but the inside didn't feel much better.

[00:09:45] Whoever had lived there previously had left in a hurry because they left all of their

[00:09:49] belongings behind.

[00:09:51] Dishes, TVs, bed frames, a little girl's clothes, and even more were all left behind.

[00:09:58] However, the strangest side of all was in the backyard.

[00:10:02] There was a massive burn pile in the backyard, with personal effects that had been burned

[00:10:08] black.

[00:10:09] The burn pile was situated in the middle of a black circle.

[00:10:15] The whole house had a very creepy vibe to it.

[00:10:18] Something just felt very wrong.

[00:10:20] My father, as a promise to his dying mother, started work on the house immediately.

[00:10:25] He arranged for satellite TV to be hooked up in the living room, and this was the room

[00:10:30] in which my uncle and his family were forced to sleep while work was going on elsewhere

[00:10:34] in the house.

[00:10:35] However, this happy abode soon turned into a living hell.

[00:10:41] Sleeping in the living room, you would hear footsteps walking across the wooden floors.

[00:10:46] Doors would fly open and close themselves.

[00:10:49] You would even see strange shadows throughout.

[00:10:52] My uncle started seeing a small boy and an older man in overalls with straw hats who

[00:10:58] would torment him up until his dying day.

[00:11:02] His wife, who thought that he was crazy, never knew anything about the odd happenings

[00:11:06] until one day when she was at the kitchen sink.

[00:11:09] She saw a boy run past the kitchen window.

[00:11:13] She went outside to look for him, but nothing was there.

[00:11:17] My uncle's daughter soon started experiencing

[00:11:20] these odd happenings at the property.

[00:11:22] She told her mother that she had been playing

[00:11:24] with a boy in her room.

[00:11:26] But when the mother went to check, nobody was there.

[00:11:30] My uncle was continually tormented by these spirits.

[00:11:33] Once, while my family was visiting,

[00:11:35] he locked them all up in the back bedroom

[00:11:38] out of fear that these spirits were going to hurt them.

[00:11:42] Eventually they fled the home,

[00:11:44] having been run out by all of the aggressive activity.

[00:11:48] My uncle quickly passed away in 2017.

[00:11:51] After his death, the family pastor and another preacher

[00:11:55] went to the property and blessed it.

[00:11:57] They attempted to banish the dark entities haunting the home.

[00:12:01] They threw holy water on the walls

[00:12:03] and the front and back doors, then ordered

[00:12:05] the spirits out in the name of Jesus Christ.

[00:12:09] We'll be back after this short message to finish up our story of Haunted Appalachia.

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[00:14:19] Now back to my father.

[00:14:42] He would stay the night at my grandmother's when she was still alive.

[00:14:46] She died in 2018.

[00:14:50] Most of the time he would stay with her because she was afraid of the night, as she had some

[00:14:54] form of sundowner syndrome and would see and hear things at night, so he stayed to calm

[00:15:00] some of her nerves that night.

[00:15:04] This particular night, her sister was visiting for the week, and he decided to go up and

[00:15:09] hang out with them for a while, and ended up staying the night.

[00:15:14] Sometime around midnight, he was awoken by the sound of the garbage being rummaged through,

[00:15:20] followed by a loud thump.

[00:15:24] Whatever it was had knocked the lid off the trash can,

[00:15:27] causing a loud commotion that had woken up my aunt and grandmother.

[00:15:32] They ran to my dad and urged him to investigate whatever caused that disturbance.

[00:15:39] Grabbing my grandfather's old shotgun and a flashlight,

[00:15:43] he opened up the back door and

[00:15:45] walked out to investigate.

[00:15:48] He saw that the lid was off the trash can and that someone or something had gone through

[00:15:55] it.

[00:15:57] He walked farther out through the back area to see if anything was out there.

[00:16:03] And that's when he saw it, walking up the hill and through the

[00:16:07] woods. It was an enormous, towering white creature with red eyes that reflected the flashlight

[00:16:16] bouncing off of it. This creature watched him the entire time as it walked back up into the woods until it vanished.

[00:16:27] My dad walked back inside, pale as a ghost and speechless from what he had just seen.

[00:16:34] He told my aunt what happened and called my mom on the house phone.

[00:16:40] After he relayed what happened, my mom had my stepbrother try to learn about any odd

[00:16:45] encounters from the area, and he had found one.

[00:16:50] A man reported being followed in the woods while he was walking down that same stretch

[00:16:55] of road one day.

[00:16:57] He couldn't see anything, but it was walking with him every step.

[00:17:03] It was later discovered that there's a legend there about the devil himself haunting the

[00:17:09] woods of the mountains there.

[00:17:13] Now on to some of my personal experiences.

[00:17:17] My dad and I went to the rural country cemetery, located in the bowels of the mountain.

[00:17:24] This cemetery has been there for at least 80 to 90 years.

[00:17:28] It sits on a small hill with a very steep road going up.

[00:17:34] Only a very good truck with four-wheel drive or an off-roading vehicle could get up there.

[00:17:41] It has a fence around it and two pine trees sitting in the middle.

[00:17:47] My grandmother and grandfather are both buried there, as well as my uncle, who had the haunted

[00:17:53] cabin in the previous story. His ashes are buried at the foot of my grandfather's vault.

[00:18:01] Another uncle, three aunts, and my great grandparents are also buried there.

[00:18:07] We got out and went in through the chain-locked gate that you had to pull apart and open from

[00:18:12] the outside, and we sat there at the grave of my grandparents for about 20 or 30 minutes.

[00:18:20] We usually liked to walk around for a bit, and today was no different.

[00:18:26] We walked around looking at the graves from the 17 and 1800s, as well as the Cherokee

[00:18:32] graves marked by rocks at the very back of the cemetery.

[00:18:37] I found something odd on the ground, by the flat grave marker of a grave from the 1800s. It was a large footprint, at least two times larger than my own.

[00:18:50] I sat there stunned by what I was seeing.

[00:18:54] Its big toe was extremely large and round, in the shape of a quarter,

[00:18:59] perfectly round.

[00:19:02] Its arch was very broad and curved very sharply, making the rest of the foot almost look sideways

[00:19:10] in appearance.

[00:19:12] Whatever it was, was there the night prior passing through.

[00:19:18] I inspected the ground surrounding the rest of the cemetery and saw nothing else, no other

[00:19:23] tracks, nothing.

[00:19:27] When I got home, I told my mother what had happened.

[00:19:30] She seemed to believe me and my father,

[00:19:33] considering I've never lied about seeing anything like that before.

[00:19:37] And she could see the amazement on my face.

[00:19:41] Sometime later, my aunt happened to be visiting, and I told her about the track I had found

[00:19:46] out there, and what she told me was very creepy.

[00:19:51] She told me that when my other uncle was out there, visiting the graves years prior, he

[00:19:57] had come home and said that something was in the cemetery.

[00:20:02] He said he had felt watched, and was very creeped out being alone back there.

[00:20:08] Here's another story. When my grandmother died in the fall, early winter of 2018,

[00:20:15] my aunt and uncle had moved into her trailer until they could secure a new home and move back from

[00:20:21] Tennessee to be closer to family.

[00:20:25] Many people who stayed the night there while my grandmother was still alive would swear

[00:20:30] that my grandfather's spirit was haunting the residents.

[00:20:34] There were strange footsteps in the night, voices and knocking on the trailer walls.

[00:20:41] My father had even encountered sad oddities. The knocking would come from outside, and when looking outside or stepping out there with a gun,

[00:20:50] nothing was there.

[00:20:52] Prior to my grandmother's passing, my father's only living brother had come to visit her at the

[00:20:59] trailer one evening and said that he had seen my grandfather standing by her with his arm around her and said,

[00:21:07] Son, I am going to see your mother very, very soon, and then vanished.

[00:21:15] And my grandmother did join him a few months later.

[00:21:20] My aunt and uncle eventually found a suitable new home to move into,

[00:21:24] so we went over to

[00:21:26] help them move out of where they were currently staying.

[00:21:30] The moving truck was parked in the front yard with the engine running and keys in the ignition.

[00:21:36] Suddenly every light source that had helped us see suddenly went out.

[00:21:41] The flashlight we had hung on the front porch facing the front door went out,

[00:21:46] and the moving truck's engine completely died. We went back out and turned them back on.

[00:21:53] However, a few minutes later, it happened again, and everything went black.

[00:22:00] That's when I started being followed around while inside the rooms of the trailer.

[00:22:06] I felt like someone was following me, and at times I would hear a female voice saying

[00:22:13] hi.

[00:22:15] There was also a male spirit, which was also heard by my father while in the living room.

[00:22:23] This continued for a while, and finally after everything was loaded

[00:22:27] into the moving truck, we regrouped outside, ready to leave, and while we were out front,

[00:22:35] I swear I could hear someone walking across the hardwood floors in the trailer.

[00:22:41] We left shortly after, and a new family moved in a few months later.

[00:22:46] As far as I know, no other paranormal activity has been reported since.

[00:22:52] Another time, my father and I were driving back to town after visiting my aunt,

[00:22:58] and my uncle had their trailer.

[00:23:01] It was late evening and raining.

[00:23:04] Everything was muddy and raining.

[00:23:05] Everything was muddy and wet,

[00:23:08] and fog was hovering over the hills and ridgelines.

[00:23:13] We got to abandon the road about a mile out from their house,

[00:23:18] when suddenly this woman with short black hair

[00:23:22] came walking out of the woods.

[00:23:26] My father almost hit her head on and had to swerve to avoid her.

[00:23:32] She was wearing a rain jacket, black sweatpants, and dirty tennis shoes.

[00:23:38] It looked like she had been in the woods all night, maybe even all week.

[00:23:43] She had mud all over her pants.

[00:23:47] Her jacket and shirt underneath were soaking wet and her hair was a mess.

[00:23:53] She looked very disheveled and stared at us all the way up the road, just staring.

[00:24:01] I even looked back in the rearview mirror and she was still up there at the side of

[00:24:06] the road looking at us, not even moving back into the woods or walking away, just staring.

[00:24:16] She was never seen again.

[00:24:18] I often wondered just what the hell she was doing out there, wet and alone.

[00:24:29] Whatever the case may be, something was off about her.

[00:24:33] This short story happened to my brother.

[00:24:37] My brother and his friend were deer hunting in the woods, up in the area close to his home.

[00:24:40] This was multiple years ago, so nothing recent.

[00:24:45] They were walking in the woods when suddenly, they spotted something up in a tree, watching

[00:24:51] them.

[00:24:53] This thing jumps from the top of the tree, about 10 or 20 feet up, and falls all the

[00:25:00] way down to the ground without being seriously injured.

[00:25:05] It was covered in thick, matted hair, and it was on two legs.

[00:25:11] They aimed their guns at it, and then this thing screamed at them.

[00:25:17] Then it charged at them.

[00:25:19] They ran out of the woods as fast as they could.

[00:25:23] This thing chased them for quite some time.

[00:25:27] They eventually lost it and got back home in one piece.

[00:25:32] Now for a final story.

[00:25:35] My aunt and uncle are the oldest of my mother's family.

[00:25:39] My uncle had served in the Vietnam War and at one point had Ethan been captured, along with his brother.

[00:25:47] They were held hostage by the Viet Cong in the jungles.

[00:25:51] He would often tell stories of how they would mercilessly whip and beat them.

[00:25:57] After he returned home, he and my aunt lived up in the rural area where my mother's family had grown up their whole lives before she had moved to the city and started a private in-home nursing and

[00:26:10] hospice center where my aunt cared for deathly ill patients.

[00:26:16] From dementia to cancer, she treated them all with respect and kindness. Around the early 2010s, after she had long since retired

[00:26:28] and my uncle started becoming ill as well,

[00:26:31] the organization that helped get them the house had foreclosed on them.

[00:26:36] They were forced to move into a retirement home by the interstate.

[00:26:42] Around a few months to maybe a year into their stay, one night they saw an elderly woman

[00:26:48] who had Alzheimer's walking across a frozen pond near the building.

[00:26:54] No one even knew she was gone.

[00:26:57] They watched in horror as the woman fell through the ice and drowned in the lake.

[00:27:04] No one discovered her body until the next morning.

[00:27:07] However, some say her spirit lingers in the building.

[00:27:12] For instance, my aunt and uncle would often talk about how they would hear footsteps.

[00:27:19] During the middle of the night, my uncle had gotten up for something to drink,

[00:27:24] only to see the woman standing there

[00:27:27] in the middle of the living room. Frightened, he flicked on the light and she vanished.

[00:27:34] This continued for months. Eventually, my uncle's dementia got worse,

[00:28:11] got worse, and just last year he lost his long battle with that evil disease. Thanks to the author Far Cry 15 for that fascinating collection of stories. Yeah, that was good stuff.

[00:28:13] It was kind of all over the place, but it's probably worth acknowledging their mention

[00:28:18] of Native American burial grounds.

[00:28:20] Yeah.

[00:28:21] I'll try not to ramble too much, but I mean, you've seen my mom and her side of the family.

[00:28:26] You can vouch for me being native for whatever that's worth.

[00:28:29] Yeah, you're not just claiming it because you're like, you know, 0.1% or so many people

[00:28:35] that have tried to do that.

[00:28:36] It's such a thing.

[00:28:37] I don't get it, but I mean, I do get it.

[00:28:39] Native Americans are awesome.

[00:28:40] Yeah.

[00:28:41] But anyway, I just wanted to say that it's a damned if you do, damned if you don't type of thing.

[00:28:47] I hate how it's such a trope.

[00:28:48] I mean, even in The Shining,

[00:28:50] that hotel was built on Indian burial grounds.

[00:28:53] They even call it Indian in the movie.

[00:28:55] But I mean, these burial grounds do exist.

[00:28:58] And if their spirits are in this world,

[00:29:00] I think it's worth sharing.

[00:29:01] And like any of the stories we share,

[00:29:04] we simply have no way of knowing. And like any of the stories we share, we simply

[00:29:05] have no way of knowing for sure the legitimacy of the story. So that is that. Don't come

[00:29:10] at us too hard.

[00:29:11] Yeah, well said. I think the same, honestly.

[00:29:15] Anyway, I think the spirits are asking us to take a ghost hunting trip to Appalachia.

[00:29:20] What do you say?

[00:29:22] We barely have time to jump on Discord to record these episode wrap ups.

[00:29:26] I can't imagine us doing any ghost hunting

[00:29:29] in the near future unless they're nearby.

[00:29:32] I know, here we go again about all these trips

[00:29:34] we're never gonna take, but once Utah warms up,

[00:29:38] we'll get you out here to do some

[00:29:39] Skinwalker Ranch exploring.

[00:29:42] Yeah, definitely.

[00:29:43] I always got Skinwalker Ranch mixed up with Skywalker

[00:29:46] Ranch when I was younger. Oh yeah me too. Me too. I thought George Lucas was like haunted.

[00:29:53] Exactly. I always thought wow Skywalker Ranch is haunted. I want to go check out this haunted Star

[00:29:58] Wars Ranch but yeah there will be no excuses this summer. I'm coming out there for sure.

[00:30:03] Good. I think it'll be jolly good fun

[00:30:06] So tell me about your Reiki experience that you talked about last week. Oh, yeah, we haven't really talked much about it since it happened

[00:30:13] Yeah, I don't even know where to start. I'll just jump right into it. I guess we are all ears

[00:30:21] So on the surface it was basically a guided meditation.

[00:30:26] I was lying on my back and being gently touched

[00:30:29] while receiving calming words of affirmation

[00:30:31] and instructed to visualize certain things.

[00:30:35] I really enjoyed it.

[00:30:36] I didn't overthink any of it or try to psych myself out.

[00:30:40] I just passively let the experience happen.

[00:30:43] And even if somebody thinks Reiki and Qi energy is all hogwash,

[00:30:47] I personally, I felt something. I really did. More than just a general sense of peace and

[00:30:53] relaxation. After it was all said and done, I felt really good. There was something there.

[00:30:58] CB. So what did you feel?

[00:31:00] J. Well, about 10 minutes into it, I felt my whole body feel extremely light and tingly.

[00:31:08] And at random times,

[00:31:10] I would feel this really warm and firm pressure on my chest,

[00:31:13] but she wasn't even touching my chest

[00:31:15] when I felt this kind of weird.

[00:31:17] But I know she wasn't touching my chest

[00:31:20] because I took a quick peek.

[00:31:21] Sorry, I don't know if that doesn't follow proto or not,

[00:31:25] but it kind of felt like if a cat or a small dog,

[00:31:29] in your case, were to lay across your chest,

[00:31:32] but with a pulsating wave of heat.

[00:31:35] Nice, so there is something to it.

[00:31:37] Yeah, and apparently it could mean

[00:31:39] that my heart chakra might need some healing.

[00:31:43] Aw, are you okay?

[00:31:44] I'm living, I'm living.

[00:31:46] Could be better, could be worse.

[00:31:47] But based on some light reading I did,

[00:31:50] the heart chakra is associated with compassion,

[00:31:54] relationships, self-love, all that emotional stuff.

[00:31:58] But a person with an out of balance

[00:32:00] or damaged heart chakra might feel lonely

[00:32:04] or have trouble in relationships

[00:32:06] or struggle with how they feel about themselves and others.

[00:32:11] And I won't confirm or deny any of that on here,

[00:32:14] but the Reiki healer told me within minutes

[00:32:17] of us first meeting that she could sense that I'm an empath.

[00:32:20] And after the session was over,

[00:32:24] and I told her about the sensation I felt in my chest,

[00:32:26] she brought that up again and told me,

[00:32:29] that's what makes it even more important

[00:32:30] for me to heal my heart chakra

[00:32:32] and eliminate whatever might be troubling me.

[00:32:35] And not in a scammy, sign up for more type of way.

[00:32:39] Just gotta put that out there, she was great.

[00:32:41] Yeah, energies get stuck in those chakras

[00:32:45] or energy centers, whatever you wanna call them.

[00:32:48] I noticed my stuck energy when I started doing qigong,

[00:32:53] which I'll talk about in a little bit.

[00:32:55] But when I started doing qigong and working with energies,

[00:32:58] I noticed that my energy was slowly moving up,

[00:33:02] all this stuck energy that I was dealing with.

[00:33:03] It started deep down in my legs and in my pelvic region.

[00:33:08] And then it slowly went up to my gut.

[00:33:10] And then after a couple of weeks of working more,

[00:33:12] it went up to my chest.

[00:33:14] And it was like feeling this knot in my body

[00:33:17] slowly move up until it was to the top of my head.

[00:33:20] Yeah.

[00:33:21] And it took a couple of months

[00:33:23] of doing genuine energy work, but I'm a firm believer. And it's like it shot right couple of months of doing genuine energy work,

[00:33:25] but I'm a firm believer and it's like it shot right out

[00:33:29] of my head and I've been feeling so much better lately.

[00:33:31] I just hope that I can keep it up,

[00:33:33] but I definitely got to get on that Reiki stuff.

[00:33:35] You going to go back?

[00:33:37] Oh yeah. When you come out here,

[00:33:38] I'll try to get you an appointment with her.

[00:33:40] Yeah.

[00:33:41] And kind of like what I was saying earlier,

[00:33:43] even if the concrete principles of

[00:33:45] Reiki and Chi and all that aren't measurably quote unquote true, there was still at least

[00:33:51] tangible benefit to the experience. And at the very least, it was easily the best experience

[00:33:57] I've had meditating and yeah, it was just overall a very spiritual experience, really eyeopening.

[00:34:04] Yeah, no pun intended.

[00:34:06] Yeah, I've always been interested in Reiki. I heard about it on a podcast, I want to say like

[00:34:10] 15 years ago. And I'm especially interested now that I've started practicing the basics of Qigong.

[00:34:16] And I'll say this, Wikipedia can take a long walk off of a short peer for referring to energy work

[00:34:22] as pseudoscience. Oh, yeah, tell me about it. They're trying to put us out of a short peer for referring to energy work as pseudoscience. Oh yeah, tell me about it.

[00:34:26] They're trying to put us out of a job.

[00:34:28] You should also check out Rational Wiki.

[00:34:31] It's actually pretty funny, but very holier than thou with how hypercritical they are

[00:34:36] about anything that even slightly goes against hard science.

[00:34:40] I like that.

[00:34:41] That sounds great.

[00:34:42] Yeah, I went on Wikipedia to just kind of get a rundown on the history of Reiki, but it was not the place to go.

[00:34:49] Whoever jumps on there on Wikipedia to contribute anything to spirituality, metaphysical, or even conspiracies is a major dweeb.

[00:34:58] You mean like in a critical way?

[00:35:00] Yes.

[00:35:01] Okay. Just making sure.

[00:35:03] Yes, absolutely. They got so many details about the Let's Not Meet

[00:35:07] podcast wrong and the first draft that popped up on there. I didn't have anything to do with it,

[00:35:11] but it was embarrassing. Yeah, gotta be careful on there. It's good to use for like surface level

[00:35:17] things with dates and whatnot. Yeah. But I don't really think people even check the sources that

[00:35:22] are being cited. Anybody can make a webpage, write what they want,

[00:35:26] and then slap it onto a Wikipedia article

[00:35:29] and make it seem more legitimate.

[00:35:31] Yeah, and you could just go to any article

[00:35:34] and just edit it.

[00:35:36] Yeah, yeah.

[00:35:37] And sometimes it just sticks, I noticed that.

[00:35:39] Yeah.

[00:35:41] Well, energy work is real, Wikipedia can suck it,

[00:35:44] it's real shit. I don't care what a dumb

[00:35:46] website has to say about it. I read this book called The Way of Qigong and I started to learn

[00:35:51] some of the basic movements of Qigong and the breathing exercises along the way. And yeah,

[00:35:56] I can't even begin to describe the positive effects that it had on my mind, my body,

[00:36:01] and my soul altogether. Yeah, definitely. I love that.

[00:36:05] I got some neat homework after my Reiki session

[00:36:07] to protect myself from the outside

[00:36:10] and not absorbing other people's emotions

[00:36:13] to the point of it negatively affecting me.

[00:36:16] Qi Gong is cool.

[00:36:17] I was way into Tai Chi back in high school.

[00:36:19] I wanna get back into it.

[00:36:21] Yeah, they're so similar.

[00:36:22] We should do a Discord, video Discord,

[00:36:25] Qigong session with everybody.

[00:36:28] I don't think I could do that without laughing.

[00:36:30] I don't think I could be either on camera

[00:36:32] or in the same room as you

[00:36:34] and us doing Qigong poses and breathing

[00:36:37] and not just bust out laughing.

[00:36:39] You're absolutely right.

[00:36:40] I actually went to a Zen meditation center in Berkeley

[00:36:43] with a coworker who I was pretty good friends with.

[00:36:45] And just right in the middle of it,

[00:36:48] I kind of glanced out of the corner of my eye

[00:36:50] and then he's looking at me and then I'm looking at him

[00:36:53] and we both just start busting up laughing

[00:36:55] when we're trying to take it seriously

[00:36:56] and you just feel bad for it.

[00:36:58] So maybe not the best idea.

[00:37:00] I think it's better left just to be like a solo

[00:37:03] soul searching experience or one-on-one with like a master practitioner in my case

[00:37:08] I agree cool stuff. I

[00:37:11] Didn't realize how much stale energy I was sitting with for so many years until I finally started to generate like fresh new energy

[00:37:18] As they say and move it around the body. My blood pressure has gone down back to the normal range. I'm sleeping better

[00:37:24] I'm able to control my insane temper.

[00:37:26] Today I've been on the phone with two different

[00:37:28] customer service numbers for different problems

[00:37:31] and normally I would be losing it,

[00:37:33] but I was able to keep calm.

[00:37:34] Did you have to update your Microsoft anti-virus software

[00:37:38] and pay them in iTunes gift cards?

[00:37:40] Yeah, that and then I had to pay for WinRAR.

[00:37:42] Oh yeah, always, always.

[00:37:44] But yeah, my physical body just feels so much looser and calmer.

[00:37:48] Right on, right on, yeah.

[00:37:49] I do deep breathing exercises every morning and night and I felt similar benefits.

[00:37:54] I kind of got to bounce though.

[00:37:57] Okay, yeah, that's no problem.

[00:37:58] I got to get ready to catch a flight.

[00:38:01] Thanks everyone so much for listening to our shorter than normal episode this week.

[00:38:09] We both had so much going on. Brandon, you're getting some kind of construction down on your house, right? Yeah, as soon as we were supposed to start recording, the contractors showed up

[00:38:15] late and I had to go outside and talk to them. And then I had to walk my coworker through some

[00:38:20] convoluted software that we use through memory. And right before we started recording this,

[00:38:25] I was getting texts asking me when I'm showing up

[00:38:28] to play Dungeons and Dragons tonight.

[00:38:30] And tomorrow I'll be causing a little mischief

[00:38:33] in Salt Lake City until about four in the morning,

[00:38:36] my quarterly party outing.

[00:38:38] Can't believe you do that, I could never.

[00:38:40] Yeah.

[00:38:41] Lots on your plate.

[00:38:43] I'm in Portland for the weekend, so I'm out of commission as well.

[00:38:46] I'm actually having a nightmare of a time booking my ride to the airport.

[00:38:50] I guess a driver reported me as underage on the app.

[00:38:56] I mean I guess one of my first nicknames for you was the bearded boy.

[00:39:00] Yeah, I mean I guess I should be flattered, but not when I'm trying to catch a flight

[00:39:04] and the app tells me I'm not allowed to book one.

[00:39:07] Sounds like it'd make for a perfect John Hughes movie. Yeah, I was thinking that too.

[00:39:12] I've said it before and I'll say it again, technology just gets worse the more it quote-unquote advances.

[00:39:18] Well, that gives us two quote-unquotes in this episode. I love it. Perfect.

[00:39:23] Thanks everyone for listening.

[00:39:24] If you have a story to share, make sure you send

[00:39:26] it to stories at oddtrails.com and don't forget to sign up for our Patreon if you want to

[00:39:30] get access to ad-free versions of all of our episodes at a higher bitrate. You can sign

[00:39:35] up and support the show today at patreon.com forward slash odd trails and thanks again

[00:39:40] to Far Cry 15 for sharing your story. That story was narrated and produced

[00:39:45] with the permission of the respective author.

[00:39:47] Don't forget to check out the new episodes

[00:39:49] of my other podcasts like Let's Not Meet

[00:39:50] and the old time radio cast at crypticcountypodcast.com.

[00:39:53] We'll see you guys next week for another episode.

[00:39:56] Everyone stay safe.

[00:39:58] Peace out. Don't let the ghosts and the ghouls disturb you darling.