And That's Why We Drink - E385 Dinosaur Spiritualism and Mediumship Advisors

Episode Date: June 23, 2024

Hello and welcome to episode 385, we’re just here wearing two polos with double popped collars! Get into the spooky mood with us this week with Em’s tale of the mediums of Lily Dale Assembly. Then Christine covers a doozy, the case of Nicholas Alahverdian. And get someone on the trumpet so we can pitch season one of The Real Housewives of Lily Dale Assembly… and that’s why we drink!PS. Youtube, we’re so sorry for the technical difficulties this week! We should have video up and running again by our next recording. You're the best.Don’t forget to pre-order our new book, out this fall! Bit.ly/hranextstop (psssst, there are signed copies available thru Talk Shop Live AND you can watch us talk about the book)!

Hello. Hi. Look what I got. It came. It came. I was wondering if you would get any of your presents. It came Saturday. Everything was late.

My gift from Maggie was also late. Weird. Yeah, everything came late. My brothers too. And people were getting notifications saying, it's on time. And then it didn't arrive. Well, I made sure all my stuff would get sent on the 4th.

And then it all on the 4th said, your stuff got delivered. And I went, OK, whew. And then we remember what happened there. Well, the salmon we figured out folks came at 11 or 10 23 PM. So everyone was in bed. And so I didn't know there was salmon on my porch. LOL. Until the next day. Did it stay cool?

Did you eat it? You don't have to eat it. I literally ate all of it. I just finished it. Oh, oh, okay. And you didn't. The first day I ate it, and I thought, let's see what happens.

Okay, and nothing happened? No adverse effects. Then I waited a few hours, tried it again. No adverse effects. Then I just ate the rest of it, so. Okay, well that's, okay, good. You know, I can never tell if it's your chronic illness or your chronic delusion

that is giving you stomach problems. But at least we know that day, somehow it wasn't like salmon. I don't have stomach problems. I have, literally I have a stomach problem when my, like I have a stomach of steel as you know. I can eat anything and everything. It's on garbage disposal.

I'm a garbage disposal until my Crohn's flares up and then it's like stop. What's one thing you won't eat? Garbage? Pork. Oh, okay. That's fair. You know that about me.

Yeah, I never know if you're gonna have a different opinion with the wind. No, I can't eat pork. That's the only thing that really just sends me into a very bad place. Mentally and physically? Not mentally, physically. Well, I don't know. Yeah, I know you like our you love on the pigs. Well, yes, I like Forks the only thing I cannot eat

And I guess now something else since I've covered in a rash all the time, but I haven't figured that out yet But yes, I got oh by the way when I said look what I have everyone. It's um, I mean em sent me this little Amelia Earhart. What is he? A little? Well, octopus, I think. A little octopus. I love him.

He's so cute. I recently discovered that Christine loves Amelia Earhart. Yeah, well, in third grade, I made a diorama about her. And every time I say diorama, my brother's like, it wasn't a diorama, it was a two liter bottle with a styrofoam head. And I'm like, it's easier to say diorama, people like get it, but technically,

it was a two liter bottle with a big styrofoam head, and then I made Amelia Earhart and did a presentation on her. I would say diorama. Thank you. But I knew you liked her, and I was just surfing the web, taking a drive on the information superhighway. And you know what I found? I found me a little octopus, the Camellia heart.

So I went, all right, I'll throw her in my basket. She's such a cutie pie. This is what Blaze and Leona got me, a little crocodile from the aquarium. So they could swim together. Yeah, we had to they're both little. So I'm gonna put them up here. I like her little glasses.

I know, they're so cute. Oh, what a sweetie pie. Do octopus, octopi and alligators, do they go in the same spot? No, sir. Certainly not. I don't know. One's the ocean, one's lakes.

I would say a river. Think about like the Nile. The swamps of Florida, that kind of thing. I mean, alligators and crocodiles are different. But alligators are North America. Crocs are elsewhere. In another world, or you know, elsewhere. In another world, do you ran a zoo? I would never run a zoo, maybe a rehabilitation center.

You'd be an Irwin. I would love to, that would be, I would love to. That would be a dream. Except for the part where I have to do physical labor of any sort. Okay, so, Hmm, do you... What if I sat on the board? Sitting is nice.

I wore a polo shirt and I sat on the board of a... Not a polo. I wouldn't do it for a polo. Um, remember when everyone wore polos back in the day? Remember when people wore two polos at a time? Oh my god, what were you thinking? Remember when they wore shirts with blouses sewn into them? Like it wasn't even a full blouse, it was just like the collar

and then the like tails of it were sewn in. You know, and it is, I'm gonna be infuriated when it comes back, cause I'm gonna be like, I'm sorry, everyone fucking told me I was such a nerd. I was such a loser for wearing this, and now everyone else is gonna get high praise for something I endure daily. This unique fashion choice, yeah, fuck you.

Yeah, exactly, you know, I'm in a real fuck you mood currently, so I would like to say it to anyone who wants to ever wear a double popped collar who ever said anything to me about it when I did it. Yeah, losers. Is that why you drink this weekend? I guess so, sure.

Yeah, I don't have anything going on. But double polos. Double polos. Let's, you know, that should. Hang on, how was your mom? Your mom was in town, you did a whole week of activities and all that. That's not why you drink?

No. I mean, it was fun. It was, I'm a little fried from, I was trying to make sure that- Yeah, I bet. I mean, so much touristy stuff you had to do. It was mainly a lot of driving, which I guess is like a normal LA thing.

That's a touristy thing for LA. I feel like once I moved into my own neighborhood, usually when people come to town, I just want to like show them like my little area versus like drive them long distances. But it seemed that every day we had to do like a whole hour drive before we could get to stuff. Well, I saw on Facebook, on Linda's Facebook,

that you went all the way to Venice. Yeah, that was, it was fun when we got there, on Linda's Facebook that you went all the way to Venice. The West Side. Yeah. That was, it was fun when we got there, but man, that drive was really killer. But yeah, no, she had a good time. We surprised her. She kept trying to celebrate my birthday and then I'd go, ah, here's another thing. She came to see the house. She saw the house for maybe three minutes and then-

Why? And then never saw it again. Because we- Had stuff to do? Well, there was nothing to do once you saw the house she saw the house for maybe three minutes and then why and then never saw it again cuz we had stuff to do well there was nothing to do once you saw the house was not like what did you think she liked it and which I she had already seen I think she'd studied the pictures already so there really wasn't much to I think she just wanted to be put in it it's like to say that she had been in it but she knew that house inside and out. She wanted to be put in the house. Gotcha.

She just wanted to stand there like a VR game and be like, Oh wow, I'm actually there. And be like this? Yeah. Just kind of pat around. Do that like that weird tilting that the Sims do. Or then they go like, Hossa, Hossa. And scratch their head. Yeah. Just like, I don't know. we're kind of like have a freak out. Yeah, for no reason. She had a good time at the house,

and then we just kind of got distracted with all other sorts of stuff. But yeah, that was fun. And then I think, honestly, one of the best things that happened, though, was Allison and I really haven't relaxed in a very long time. We've, in a very long time, at least in the same room. And so we had a pajama day yesterday, which was nice. Aw, that's fun.

We intentionally woke up around noon and then did not get out of our pajamas or get off of the couch until she had to go to bed. I love that for you though. That's delightful. A very good day. So anyway, that's why I drank. My favorite is when you go to bed and you're like, oh,

I'm already in my jammies. We literally changed out of our jammies to have a pajama day set of jammies. We had themed jammies. That's cute. And now we are on our X-Men kick because a new Marvel movie is coming out next month and we got to catch up.

So it seems every day we're watching a new X-Men movie, but that means that Allison is making themed drinks. So we're expanding our minds and our palates. And that's also why I drink. That's remarkable. I'm so happy for you. Why do you drink, Christine? Well, I was gonna give you a reason.

Then I remembered the real reason is Blaze broke his face. All of it? Yeah, well. What part? Oh, God. Actually, like the bones broke in his face? Yes. Is he alive?

He's fine. Is he okay? Is he home? He's home now. Okay, here's what happened. He had a jujitsu tournament. I would know. Yeah. And I called-

He lost. It sounds like he lost. He called me. I said, how'd it go? He said, not as expected. I said, oh, you lost? He said, no, I won. Oh.

I said, oh, well, that's great. And he said, yeah, but the guy elbowed me in the face and it's broken. And I said, what do you mean it? Your nose? And he's like, yeah, but the guy elbowed me in the face and it's broken. And I said, what do you mean it, your nose? And he's like, no, my face. And I was like, how does your face break? And he's like, well, the orbital bone is broken. And I was like, are you lying right now?

And he's like, no, I thought maybe it was just a cut, but then he's like, they washed off the blood. And then I went back into the match and finished and won the match. Then he walked off the mat and then I went back into the match and finished and won the match. That's so badass. Then he walked off the mat and vomited and he's like, they were like, okay, you clearly have a concussion. So he went to the bathroom to look at his face and he thought, oh, they washed off.

It's fine. He looked at the mirror and he went, nope, that needs stitches. Like he worked in the ER for years. So like if he, like he knows if he needs to go in. So he goes, yeah, that needs stitches. So he waited for hours for his friend to finish his matches. He's like, well, Christine, he was up for gold. And I was like, OK, but your face is broken.

He's Morgan Earp. He's the one where he's like, my face, I literally like. Who's Morgan Earp? From like two episodes ago at the OK Corral. You know, I don't remember that. How do you remember that? Because we had like three different conversations about how he would just like throw his shoes on for a fight.

But like, I feel like Blaze is definitely giving Morgan Erp energy by saying like, yeah, my face is broken in half, but I'm going to stick around because you're going for goal. To the match. And so, yeah. So then he's like on his way home and he's like, I gotta go to the ER. And I was like, well, so you have a concussion, like, are you okay to drive? He goes, yeah, I'm fine.

I just keep forgetting some words. And I'm like, this is scaring me. So then he goes to the ER, they do a CT scan and his fucking orbital bone is just like fucking broken as shit. and they're telling him, oh, well you have four, please explain this to me, four optic nerves from your eye

and they're worried that one of the bones could have like gotten caught on an optic nerve. I'm so sorry, it's so horrible and sick. And so anyway- I like how none of those words he forgot. He was just able, all those he could explain to you. Oh, it's just horrifying.

And so anyway, he looks like his face got hit with a baseball bat and he has to go see like a facial surgeon and it's just like such a mess. But I just feel terrible because the guy like apparently just full on like swung his elbow right in the face, like totally not cool Is that is that even like a legal move? No, no But the guy didn't get disqualified. So now blazes coach is all pissed and like they're

anyway, the guy apologized, but apparently the guy's coach was a real asshole about it and was like He's off the mat for five whole minutes that he should be disqualified. He's like, well, you broke my face. So yeah, let me wipe the blood off. What color is his eyeball? Black. Oh, the eyeball is the normal color, but it's just like black here. Yeah. Like it looks like someone took a sharp beat to his face.

And how does it, how does something like that heal? Cause you can't really set your face. Surgery. Like, okay, maybe. They're going to see, I guess, when the swelling goes down. He has to go see if he needs surgery to set it. But I don't know. I don't really know beyond that.

He's probably going to hear this and be like, that's not how it works. I don't know. All I know is that for now his vision is OK, which is good, because it means probably it didn't impact the optic nerve. But his face is broken. In law long order, every other victim has an orbital fracture or something.

Yeah, it sounds painful. Or an orbital break. So I'm just used to that being something only people who aren't alive anymore have experienced. Oh, you mean the dead people in SVU. I did not catch onto that, I see. Yeah, I think it's probably a common one when you get just

hit right in the face, like right smack in the middle of the face. Um, but yeah, so that sucks. And so that's why I drink this week because, uh, poor thing. And he's, he just walked in and he was like, I'm sad because now he has to take a break and now he has to go to this facial surgeon and it's a whole thing. Just sucks. And I think the reason, like usually, as you know, I'm very in like an emergency, I'm usually just like, I'm ready, I'm chill. But this, I'm not used to being the one who's witnessing the medical,

like I'm usually the one in the medical emergency. And I'm fine. Yeah, I think you're prepared to take care of yourself, not other people. Yeah, like usually something happens, I'm like, don't worry about it, I'm fine. It's just that my tooth broke in half in the middle of the night, or like, don't worry,

I just fell out of this cave or whatever. My eardrum burst, yeah. I just stuck something and broke my eardrum, you know, all the usual things. There's lemon juice stuck in my ear canal, et cetera. But this time I'm like, well, I can't do anything. I just have to sit there and his face is broken is terrible So yeah, how long does it healed? You know like like it's his concussion over. I have no concept

I mean he is alive and well and walking around so I okay. I can he drive right now Yeah, he can drive. He seems alright. He just seems very like out of it a little bit like how do you explain that to Leona? We said he got an owie She sure did and then she gave him an incanto band-aid For and then slapped it right on his face. No, we do not let her touch his face But guess what we opened last night What the doctor kit from Funko M? Oh? Wow that one's been sitting in the in the back rooms

I told you I keep I keep these things because she has enough of fucking toys She gets toys every friggin other day from people like her grandparents like me and you and like we're if we go to Target We should get a little dollar section thing so like, you know, I try to like keep the rate of toys slow, you know? But so then when this medical thing happened and she started getting really into like putting band-aids on us and stuff, I was like, oh, well, Funko M got you this really nice gift, should we open it?

And it was right there and we put it together and she ran around the house giving everybody checkups and she loved it. So I'm gonna send you some photos later. Oh yeah, she's gotta give dad a checkup a couple times. Yeah, she's gotta so I'm gonna send you some photos later. Oh yeah she's gotta give dad a checkup a couple times. Yeah she's got a I think he needs more than just a plastic mallet on his knee but we can we can try. As long as it's not plastic mallets it's the face I guess we're good. Is he in pain

currently still like as bad as the day it happened? So it's it was very numb which is good and bad because numb means nerve damage but it also means less owie so then at one point I witnessed him touch his eye and he started screaming and it scared me so bad because it's like a broken bone and so he like accidentally touched the eye and just started screaming. And I was like, I have to leave the room. Can he see? Like he has to put glasses on or contacts or something. Yeah, he can see fine.

Okay. Oh my God. I'm sorry, I'm asking so many questions. No, no, I, and I'm like, I didn't even ask him if I could talk about this, but he has seen, I think he assumes. I think when you break your face, you have somehow also lost the ability to control people talking about it.

Yes. And I think once you marry me, you have really lost the ability to control people talking about it Yes, and I think once you marry me you have really a lot of the ability to decide what I talk about Anyway, so yeah, he's okay, but it was very scary Can he eat? Job bone rub it up and down Eat I think it's probably uncomfy though I mean, I sure haven't tried. This was yesterday, or maybe the day before. The irony is that he probably needs

so many extra kisses right now. I know, well I keep like hugging his arm. I'm like, this is as close as I can get. I don't wanna go near you. Like I don't even wanna like make him wince, you know? So I'm like, just very delicately. I would lock myself in a room. I'd be like, nobody talked to me until this is over

Oh my god, I would Rapunzel myself. I'd be like it's just like to break a bone in your face I mean Jesus Christ you and I just talked about how we've never broken a bone We just talked about this didn't we maybe we're hon. I'm gonna I'm gonna text Alison to be extra careful today I was gonna say I'm knocking on my head. Tell Allison, I know she has that jujitsu tournament today. Tell her to please forfeit her match. You know what's wild though is I really, this is like so childish, but I think of Blaze as indestructible.

I don't know why, but he's really got like that vibe of like he's always got everything handled. Well, I talked to Renee and I said, it feels like when your parent cries in front of you. Yeah. Or like, and you feel like, wait a minute, that's my job. I'm supposed to be crying or I'm supposed, you're supposed to help me be medically healed, you know?

And I'm like, I'm not used to this way. So last night I was literally, and this is what my, this is what our marriage is. I mean, it's gonna be a surprise to no one, but it's exactly as people picture. He's laying there and he's going to bed early And first of all, he's putting on his sleep goggles, you know sleep mask and I'm like don't put that on your face I'm like, oh yeah, but he puts it on and then he lays down and he just like looks so sad and hurt and his Face is all black and blue and I was like, can I give you Reiki and he's like, yes, please

And Reiki gave him Reiki. I feel like you know, he's really hurt when he's the, yes, please. And so I just sat there and gave him Reiki. I feel like you know he's really hurt when he's the skeptic of the family and he's like, Reiki sounds fucking great. He was like, yes. And I said, are you sure? He's like, mm-hmm. And so I gave him Reiki.

And then as I was giving him Reiki, I heard him start, he fell asleep. So I was like, oh, that's nice. Man, it sounds like you have the perfect power to make people snooze. I know, I'm like, I never get to use these magic fingers. That was weird. I should have used them on your heart.

Yeah, that would have been really nice. That would have saved me a lot of- Let me come in and get a little closer. That would have saved me a lot of money in trauma. Yeah, so thanks for doing that. Trauma, maybe not. I can't promise it goes without that. But I don't charge a fee, OK? Yes.

Well, that's nice. As long as you can put me to sleep, which your couch already does. I do that all the time. It's amazing how good I am at that. Oh, I feel so bad for him. Well, how don't know. How are you as his caregiver currently?

Are you feeling extra stressed of like how- This is where I've really learned, Em, that like I know people talk about it and it's such a like eye roll topic, the idea of an empath. And I don't know if there's a better word for it, but like I physically feel it. Like I need to physically remove, not physically,

I need to actively, yeah, disengage like consciously because I feel it like in my body, like it aches, it hurts, my skin hurts. Like I, every time I'm around him, I'm like, my body hurts. And I'm like, okay, this isn't helpful to him if I'm also just hurt. But so I like, it's proving to me again that I can genuinely like feel someone else's physical pain

which is the freakiest thing. And like very eye-opening because I can tell myself like, oh, this isn't mine. Cause I'm like, why am I suddenly so in so much pain? And then I'm like, oh wait, that's not mine. I'm just like near him and like, I don't know, absorbing it, I don't know how it works. But so I've been actively working on like setting that wall

up and being like, no, no. Does it help to not look at him? I know it's mean, but like, cause like, if I saw someone with an obvious injury I'm much more inclined to like tell myself I can feel it which not doubting you I can't do that, but I could at least Symbolically say or you know empathy feeling right like of like oh wow. Yeah Like when we were talking about our ears last week. I was like wow my ears are so itchy because you're Yeah, it's it does help I itchy because you're talking about itchy ears. Yes, exactly.

Yeah, it does help. I mean, I'm even talking about it right now. I'm like, okay, just like, get out of me. But yeah, man, I just like, I need to just set some better boundaries here. But what else is new, I guess. But anyway, otherwise I'm good. I just, I'm worried about him, you know?

I hope he doesn't need to, I hope the surgery is not too intense or anything but it's always something, you know, yeah, I I Don't know what to say. That's I think you're allowed to someone broke their face. So yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, so when's he going back in the ring? I know he's like well, I'm gonna stop by the gym today I was like I'm gonna actually end you I'm gonna end I'll give you something to cry about is what I said

classic I Don't know he just use your fingers in reverse and like Yeah, anyway, I don't know we'll see but um, but um, anyway, I'm ready for a story. Um, please distract me. Uh, Okay, distract distract distract distract distract, uh, did that work actually, yeah Good start Okay, this is Okay, this is me telling you all about a very, very interesting tiny community in upstate New York called Lilydale. Ooh, okay.

Fun fact, there are less than 300 people who live there. Fewer than. Sorry. Less than. Less than. I don't really, out of spite. Less than. Less than. Out of spite, less than. OK.

It's 2 and 1 half hours away from Hydesville, which we discussed in the past when I covered the Fox Sisters, because that's where they lived. And Hydesville is, I think, because of the Fox Sisters, it is known as the birthplace of spiritualism. Yes. It was in episode 201, if you'd like to go check that out. But so it's two and a half hours from there.

And before we get into Lilydale itself, we'll talk about what was going on in the mid to late 1800s. We talk about literally all the time. I don't even need to tell you about the big boom in spiritualism. But at the same time, there was this upheaval in the scientific community because a lot of people were learning new things they hadn't ever learned before. Paleontology is getting big, we're learning about dinosaurs and fossils in the Ice Age. Technology is getting better, Morse code is invented.

I'm like losing my mind. Think about this time, there's trains everywhere, we got one house school rooms. We've got spiritualism and Ouija boards. We've got fucking, what was the thing you said? Before Morse code, the other one. Dinosaurs? Dinos, paleontology's happening.

Can you imagine opening up the paper one day, you're so used to your hoop and stick and then all of a sudden there's a picture of a fucking monster and you're like, this must be a silly little sketch. And then they're like, these were real. They're like, this ain't the Sunday cartoons. This is a real thing we found.

Oh my God. I imagine somebody drawing like a fucking fire breathing dragon and putting it in the newspaper and going, oh, these were real. I know like that. Yeah. And some of them flew. We talk about beasts, but they were actually among us. oh, these were real. I know like that. Yeah, and some of them flew.

We talk about beasts, but they were actually among us. Yeah, that's crazy. Oh my Lord. Well, they weren't among us technically, unless you're a creationist, but yes. My black coffee and my boiled chicken at the diner, and they just open up the paper and you're like, oh my God, is this a joke?

Is that your preferred meal at the diner? I don't think anyone had a preferred meal. I assume the simplest foods were served. Just like cooked chicken, it doesn't matter how. No, remember they had celery vases? They had, I mean, you had to be rich for that, but they had jello. Remember they found out about gelatin

and they put everything in Jell-O? I think that was the, was that the 1960s or something? I just was looking up recipes about Jell-O. Well, there was a big surge of Jell-O back then, yes. But I think the discovery happened in the Victorian era. Is that? I think you're right. I could be wrong. I think gelatin and I don't know if Jell-O, I don't know.

But that'll be another deep dive., but you might be onto something there Imagine also because in today's world there's so many people where facts are being put in front of them and they're like I don't know about this imagine like the Upper East Side of the 1800s learning about a fucking dinosaur like yeah, you feel like excuse like you What and not even the Upper East Side. Imagine like the people in the sticks. Like imagine the Beverly Hillbillies learning about fucking dinosaurs. They're like, what?

You have to be kidding me. Like no wonder you'd be like skeptical of everything. Yeah. They say there's monsters in the sky. There's dragons, right. Yeah. Which like, when dinosaurs were first discovered, I don't think there must have been a difference between that and dragons. Yeah. Which like, when dinosaurs were first discovered, I don't think there must have been a difference

between that and dragons. No. Also, like, I wonder how, well, this is a deep dive for another day, but I'm trying to figure out the, when dragons became part of the zeitgeist, like even in drawings and books, cause I think about them in medieval times, they must have, so they must have had, I'm assuming if they knew in the middle ages about

dragons that dinosaurs would have been what they associated that with. Or do we just assume, do we just assume that dragons were part of medieval times when nobody was thinking about dragons back then? Well I know dragons I believe have a our ancient Chinese That's right history, so I don't know I don't know if that like it's a mythology from back then But that was thousands of thousands of years ago, but I don't know Anyway, all crazy all crazy. I'm sure there's a podcast somewhere. We can learn about this About like putting it'd be fun to hear an, which maybe I'll be the one that covers it. Dinosaurs and spiritualism happening at the same time.

That's crazy. So. That is crazy. Anyway, we're learning about dinosaurs. We're learning about technology. Morse code. Do you know what the first message was in Morse code? SOS.

You would think. What hath God wrought? Oh. Not SOS? You would think. What hath God wrought? Not SOS. Oh, Christ. Whoa, whoa. Coming in hot. I bet the response was IDK. My BFF Jill.

Yeah. So anyway, a lot of discoveries are happening at this time. It is freaking the Christians out because people are going against Christian teachings. They're eager for something new. And also like part of the Christian teachings is like, oh, don't doubt or question or worry about anything, just accept things you can't see with your own eyes.

But he also lives up in the sky and he does magic miracles and he rose from the dead. But that's not magic. That's different. Right. Exactly. And so I think, well, they were pissed off. They were like, what do you mean you want

to see things to believe them? That is not how we've been doing things. And- It's ridiculous. Luckily, though, for these people, spiritualism, yes, it was pitched as science, but it was pitched as science while still being faith-based. So a lot of Christians, it became a slippery slope into spiritualism. Many people thought, like if it was rooted in Christianity and God is real and the afterlife

is real and souls are real, Why not just try to observe it? Like we're not doubting that it exists. We just want to see proof of it, if that makes sense. So spiritualism snagged a couple of Christians. I mean, I think that's still the case because I feel like I follow a few spiritualists or people who do like psychic mediumship and some of them do of them are Christian.

I mean, usually a broader type of Christianity that's not very like super biblical. But I feel like that's still a common belief held by a lot of people, even spiritual people. Oh, I mean, even with me. I mean, I don't at all identify as Christian. But when I stop and think about like my relationship with spirituality, it definitely starts from a Christian tenant, which like I don't even it does.

I don't mean for that to happen. But I think, oh, there's a higher power or there's a higher something. Yeah, there's a lot of overlap that we don't necessarily realize. Yeah. Yeah. So I think it's that's just kind of the the way that it spread throughout the the worlds that I think a lot of people start with this basic core of there's something else out there and it's smarter or more powerful than me or there's something we don't understand. I mean which I guess that comes from quite a few religions but anyway the Christians some of them were very mad about spiritualism at first, especially because even

though it was entrenched in Christianity, it had people expanding their relationship with the universe. A lot of spiritualists were calling themselves free thinkers at the time, and because they were already having this fringe belief compared to traditional Christianity, they were more open-minded to other movements such as women's suffrage, ah, and abolitionism, ah, and free love. Oh my God, say it ain't so. And so it just kind of became this, I think they maybe were kind of became this, I think they maybe were stretching the word from spiritualism to just free thinkers because they wanted to encompass all people who were, I guess, I guess in today's world they even though they're called free thinkers, which is kind of ironic, I would say they're like critically thinking a little more of like, Oh, well, why does this mean

this and why does this mean this and or they're just more maybe open-minded like they're just more Accepting like yeah, that's a good way to put it to you One community and that's yeah, because I'm sure there were some like actual fringe not so great communities that were in the free-thinking Movement, you know, we probably it probably Spanned quite a range both. Yeah but in the free thinking movement. You know, it probably spanned quite a range. I both, yeah. But in the New York Times, they said, this was an article about the free thinkers. It said, members of the spiritualism religion

generally welcomed other novel beliefs of the time, including vegetarianism and environmentalism in addition to women's rights. There was a synergy between all these movements and new ideologies helping them all expand. So they were, it was like once you fell into the fold, you just kind of, everything about you started. Slippery slope. Waking up, waking up.

Woke ass free thinkers. Yeah. And like on time, they were kind of playing onto each other because if you were in the spiritualism movement, you would be hearing more about women's suffrage, which was like a big thing at the exact same time. And like on time they were kind of playing onto each other because if you were in the spiritualism movement You would be hearing more about women's suffrage, which was like a big thing at the exact same time so they played into each other very well and

they kind of gave and take from their communities because if you were into spiritualism you kind of ended up being in involved the women's suffrage and learning more about you know feminism and all that and in turn, it was very feminist to be in spiritualism because it gave women a lot of rights that they didn't have. It got them into careers by going into mediumship or doing maybe some public speaking, which they weren't totally allowed to do all the time. They could stand up for themselves

and speak out on these things. Totally. So during this time of big change, a lot of it happened to be going on in upstate New York. It was like kind of the epicenter of all of these woke groups of people all hanging out together. Who knew? It even became known as the burned over district because there were so many movements blowing through the area like wildfire. Oh my God. So there's like scorched earth, like next, next. Wow. In 1858, there's this guy named Jeremiah Carter,

and he founded like a church of the free thinkers, the religious society of free thinkers. He, although that sounds really cool, I do want to state that his whole thing is that he wanted to, uh, build this society so that way they could practice mesmerism, which I covered in episode three, three eight. And it was very much like the healing of hands and you know, slippery slope, slippery slope. And I will say again, I know this is kind of like a touch

and go excuse, but I will say it was a different time. And maybe he really was, he didn't know as much about it as we do now. And he was like, I just want to know more and didn't know how problematic it is. I mean, I'm over here talking about Reiki. So, you know, it's like a lot of this stuff does kind of merge.

Yeah, it definitely merges. I think when you, maybe it's because you're my friend and I justify all of your insanity. All of it. But when I think of- It's the best, you guys. Like even today, I think we would all agree that, in the range of healing of hands, yes, Reiki exists, yes, Mesmerism exists,

one involves like full fucking consent from another person. And like, you can't yes, Reiki exists, yes, Mesmerism exists. One involves full fucking consent from another person. You can't even perform Reiki without asking somebody first, but with Mesmerism, it was like, let me do some really shady shit and not help people at all. It might be a little intentional. Yeah. I feel like there's been, at least, I don't know what Reiki was like back then. So maybe these things all go in waves and get more parameters added. But I feel like back then, or now with Reiki especially,

there are parameters of, like you said, consent and also just the idea that it's only for good and also the idea that you aren't like curing cancer. You know what I mean? Like there's not this idea, it's like, yes, energy healing and stuff and people believe it to certain different extents, but nobody, well, I wouldn't say nobody,

but most respectable practitioners are not saying like, I will fix your broken face. Like I will heal your orbital bone with my hands. You know, it's like a different. One of the major ingredients maybe is narcissism. It's like, which like tells you how far, how deep we're going. Cause like, maybe it's like,

oh, here's what I can provide realistically. Are you down with that? All and then the spectrum goes all the way down's like, oh, here's what I can provide realistically. Are you down with that? And then the spectrum goes all the way down to like, I am God and I will heal you today. Yeah, whether you like it or not. Yeah, exactly. So maybe that's the range that we're talking about.

That could very well be. So I don't know where he fell, but I do know that mesmerism in hindsight was problematic. So I don't know if he knew that. I don't know if he just wanted to learn more about it. I mean, he could have wanted to learn about it the way I wanted to learn about it and just like give a report on it.

So. Let's see what's up. But he founded this society with the plans to study mesmerism. Somewhere along the line, he is now contacting spirits and they are giving him instructions. So I think I know where on the spectrum he was where he was the spectrum of mesmerism by the way I heard it and I went oh my god I didn't mean, yeah, yeah, yeah. But anyway, I heard it and I went, oh my God.

I didn't even hear it. I was like, la la la. Well, so yeah, he's talking to spirits who are telling him what to do and he is moving accordingly throughout the world. And I guess somewhere in the 1870s, these ghosts say, hey, there's this guy named Willard Alden and he has land that is made specifically

for mediums and seances and you need to go build a camp on his property Okay, it's starting to get sketchy again. Yeah, all of a sudden. It's like, uh was Willard Alden involved? Yeah. Yeah, this sounds weird now suddenly so Jeremiah apparently I'm guessing he just grabbed his one Unwheelable suitcase and goes over to Willard Alden and says, knock, knock, knock, I'm here to build fucking camps on your property whether or not you want it. And honestly, maybe Willard Alden was also so

into the spiritualism world that he opened the door and this man said, the spirits told me I have to be here and he just let him right in, so who knows. Jeremiah builds this camp, he calls it Lilydale, which is the topic of today. Pretty. And it's because of all the lilies, fun fact. Okay, I was like, who was Lily?

Okay, it's the flower, that's nice. I thought the same thing. I looked high and low for the reason why it was called Lilydale. I'm glad you did because I was gonna ask. So thank you for preparing that for me. Mm-hmm. Well, you gotta know what's in a name. What's in a name? That's, and I always I'm glad you did, because I was gonna ask. So thank you for preparing that for me. Well, you gotta know what's in a name. What's in a name?

And I always say that, you know? I've always said that. And I always will. And I always will. So he calls it, oh, I'm sorry, not even Lilydale. Lilydale is, I guess, the town. But if you live there, you are part of the Lilydale is, I guess, the town. But if you live there,

you are part of the Lilydale assembly. Ooh la la, okay. It's essentially their HOA, I guess. They're bored. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. They're big bored. And Lilydale hosts summer camps for spiritualists and all free thinkers as of the 1870s, which sounds, I mean, you and I would have slipped

into so many cults at that time. We'd be fucked. Who are we kidding? I mean, the way that it was, again, imagine me with my black coffee and my boiled chicken at the diner and then I see- I can't stop imagining. In the classifieds right under a sketch of a fucking dinosaur, it says, come to our summer

camp where you can be a medium. The newspaper had to be insane. And then they're like, hey, we'll fix your ailments. And since Remicade hasn't existed yet, I'm like, please fix it with your fucking hands, God. That's such a good point. It's not even in my notes, but I think that's, well done.

Because think of how many people fell into this just because there was chronic illness with no support. Imagine like even a toothache, like things that you weren't necessarily able to get rid of or treat. There's so many reasons why I feel I have a lot of sympathy. I have a lot of initial sympathy for people who end up in cults, especially the farther back in history you go because there was nowhere else to turn a lot of times.

So people who are cults are, they know what they're doing. Convincing. They know what they're doing. They know the act of a schmooze and I eat that shit up. I love a schmooze. So I would fall victim.

I'd be their first one. And I'd be the one saying welcome to my new cult, M. It's called and that's why we drink, join us, won't you? That's our past life history together. A thousand percent. One of us ruin the other. Oops. I don't know who it was.

Nobody knows. So Jeremiah creates these summer camps for all free thinkers. You don't even have to be totally into spiritualism, but if you, like I said, if you're kind of amongst that community anyway, maybe your friends are going, so then you want to follow them. And then, yeah. So Lilydale grows super fast. These summer camps are a smash hit. By 1900, which is a hundred years later,

I actually saw one source that said within nine years. So from nine to a hundred years later, the property is now 37 acres big. Damn. And it's become this major social hub for mediums and for all sorts of social activism. Susan B. Anthony spoke there, Elizabeth Katie Stanton spoke there. Some people even lived at Lilydale year-round because they were just like, why would I leave this haven? Damn. And like I said, this was at the latest 1900, at the earliest, the 1870s. If you're a woman, especially, you're just like, why on earth would I?

Hell yeah. Why would I go anywhere else? By 1890, there were 11 million spiritualists in the country. There were over 35,000 practicing mediums Whoa, and that means there were countless fraudulent practitioners out there sure Even the Fox sisters who are the ones who are somehow indebted for being They helped the in the creation of spiritualism. They were found out to be frauds This is where I found out that Christine can crack her feet,

which is, I just never want to hear it again. Sorry. If you ever want to listen to it yourself, you can go to that episode and enjoy. If you're a foot person. No, not a sicko about being a foot person. A sicko who wants to hear me crack my feet. Yeah.

If you are a foot person, you could also go to Christine's wikifeet.com. I'm sad about that, because they picked the worst photos for my wiki feet. Whoever made are a foot person, you could also go to Christine's wikifeet.com. I'm sad about that, because they picked the worst photos for my wiki feet. Whoever made that, like, come on. And I got like a B minus, understandably so, because, and I do have very nice feet, I just wish that I had gotten some better

selections up there. And I didn't really- Would you like to show one right now so someone can screenshot it and put it on wiki feet? Not right now. They're not ready for consumption just yet. Consumption, oh my God. I see, with the eyes, not like a...

Sorry, either one I would say, probably not prepared. Ah! Like one of them is just like me, like pregnant and really sweaty being out. Like why is that? I mean, I'm sure that's a thing. Yeah, but someone's into that. Yeah, but it's not even like of my feet.

Like it's like this big, you know, you can't even see them. It's all blurry. So I'm like, somebody get a better. That's called the, that's called the tease maybe. Yeah. And then I'm like, well now I can't just post photos of my feet cause that's too obvious, right?

If I'm just trying to up my score on WikiFeet. So I feel like I just have to play the long long game wait till there's a photo that where my feet look better post that one next time next time you're barefoot in front of me I'll just snap a picture and we'll just see where it lands on the internet you that's the real plot twist what if I'm in charge of you did this and you rated me okay which is the rating that I. I don't even have an account on wiki feet. So I are you winning or losing? I'm always wearing sandals.

That's why you're not wearing sandals. You know, that's true. I am covered head to toe pretty often. Okay. Where are we? Oh, fraudulent mediums at this time. So all of a sudden there's this huge, essentially commune of mediums. And that means there's probably not a hundred percent honest people going to

this, to this camp. And spiritualists who consider themselves legitimate, it's not that they're for an establishment or for an organization, but they do want to do something about reducing the fraud. That way they could protect their own reputations. And by 1893, the National Spiritualist Association of Churches is founded. The first president is a resident of the Lilydale Assembly.

And the National Spiritualist Association of Churches, the NSAC, the N-sac, they create these principles to live by, I guess as an honor code. And if you are part of NSAC, these are your tenants, your core tenants. We believe in an infinite intelligence, okay? A higher power. We believe that the phenomena of nature, both physical and spiritual, are the expression of this infinite intelligence. Okay, that's nice. That's nice. We affirm, I need your help by the way, Miss Fewer Than, because I can't read the sentence and not have my brain shut down. The words don't compute click for me.

We affirm that a correct understanding of such expression and living in accordance therewith constitute true religion. Okay, so true religion is basically taking the former two points and living by them. That's what they call religion, is like living in a way where you view nature as an expression of a higher power. Okay, that's helpful, thank you. I think the second I saw accordance therewith, I went, whoa, am I in court all the second? Are you in what?

Am I in court? I feel like that's something that only a judge would say. Yeah, it does. Okay, no, thank you. I needed that because I was like, whatever that one is, I might not believe it. Okay. We affirm that the existence and personal identity of individuals continue after the change called death. That's cool. Okay. I like that they call it the change. Me too. Isn't that what they also call it?

Call menopause. Yeah, we'll go through a few changes. We're always changing. You know what I mean? But it is nice. It somehow feels more healing when someone passes away to be like, oh, they're not gone. They just changed. I've heard transition.

I've heard change. I've heard pass. Yeah. And then there's two more. We affirm that communication with the so-called dead is a fact, scientifically proven by the phenomena of spiritualism. All right. That one I'm wishy washy on, but I could vibe with it.

Because of the fact thing? Yeah. Saying scientifically proven by. It's like, well- That's a stretch. Yeah. It scientifically proven by. It's like, well. That's a stretch. Yeah, it's a stretch. And then the last one is we believe that the highest morality is contained in the golden rule.

Do unto others as you would have done them done unto you. All right, I mean, that's, I guess, fair. Don't be a dick. Yeah. It's a good rule. Yeah. So in 1880, 1898, a New York Times reporter writes that

a quarter million people are visiting Lilydale each year. Jesus. Which like, again, with your non-wheeled suitcases and no planes, how are you getting there? How are you getting there? Is this like the Oregon Trail to get all the way to Lilydale? It's a train, I'm telling you, they're on trains to Lilydale. You know I was on one of those trains.

You know it. I know. And I think you were in the caboose. I'm sure. I hitched a ride. I probably didn't pay for my ticket. No, you were my favorite little hobo. And I was like, come with me.

Come with me. I'll take care of you. Let's go to Lilydale. OK, here I come. Yeah, a quarter million people at a time when travel was not as easy as it is today. So I just extrapolating that in my own head, it would be easily millions of people.

And then you think of the advent of like TikTok and like social media to like let you know it's out there, not just like reading about it from the newspaper. This thing would be like caked in people year round. Year round Salem. Caked in people, that's new. And people in cake is also nice. Well, the first one's not so nice.

That one, yeah, sure. I don't know. However you like to say it. Caked in people, people, okay. So they said that the, oh, here's the other thing about the New York Times reporter. All these people are showing up. And they decided that the lo- oh, here's the other thing about the the New York Times reporter All these people are showing up And they decided that they were going to do kind of like an early version of like rotten tomatoes on

The different types of mediums you could meet here Like they did like a or a beach to sandy maybe a review they were taking reviews of these mediums And said i'm gonna go to all these sorts of mediums at this, at this Lilydale assembly. So it's like a Yelp for mediums. Exactly. But, but not, not like a one by one, mainly the categories, like this type of medium. If you go to this one, who does this service? This is what I think about them. If they do this type of service, this is what I think about them.

So this reporter kind of really went in and I'm wondering if they actually were the perfect person to do this because they tried to keep it as scientific as possible. They were they were clearly had a healthy cloud of skepticism. Okay, okay. They were like trying to be not biased about her exactly. Okay At least that's that's my understanding of it the chunks of the article I read it sounded like they were trying to just truly be honest with other people before they got there Which thank God because imagine if you got there you're like what the fuck's going on This reporter said the lowest grade of mediums Do you know that well, I don't even do you want to guess lowest the lowest grade of mediums. Do you know, well, I don't even, do you wanna guess? The lowest grade of mediums.

Like the worst service you could go to. The worst service is the ones where they do ectoplasm. I don't know. Kind of. It was the people who could conjure clouds and smoke. Like the ones where that's like, ooh, like where they had gauze coming out of the, okay. That's comforting, because I always thought

that was like the sketchiest one, because we all know now most of that was fake. Isn't it nice to know that you could meet someone from 1898 and you would have something in common with them? Really nice, that's probably the only thing, considering apparently they only ate boiled chicken and that doesn't sound very good, but the rest, yeah, I can get on board with.

So apparently that type of practice was called etherealization. Oh, cause you're like manifesting something from the ethereal and realizing it. Okay, okay, okay. Yes. It's when things would materialize on command or when you would hear voices on command.

So she said that is, she said boo. And by the way, I don't know if this reporter is a woman but she being gender neutral. I don't know. She's like She said not my thing. She's she said a theorization you can go. It's probably a great time But you know, don't don't get like a legal if you have a group on maybe yeah or like drunk bachelorette Sure, don't expect too much. Yeah, they even Said that okay a serialization is is bad and we can probably guess that this stuff is fake. But here's another one that you really shouldn't go to for an honest experience. And the reporter said this thing was called trumpet mediumship. Have you heard of trumpet mediumship?

No. Apparently, people in a seance will stand in a circle with a trumpet in the middle of them on the floor. Stop. Why a trumpet? Why not a trumpet? Okay, fair enough. When a spirit comes into the room on command,

again of course, the trumpet would levitate and float around the circle of people one by one. Well, that's just insanity, okay. It would float past each person until it stopped at the person that the spirit wanted to talk to. The trumpet would then move itself to your shoulder. And basically, so your ear is pressed up

against the horn part, the part where the sound comes out of a trumpet. And it's just floating around they're saying? It's floating around, they scoot that, someone scoots that little trumpet right up to your ear. And then when you listen in, like it's a conch shell, apparently the spirit can talk through the mouthpiece of the trumpet and you can hear a private message.

That's truly nuts. Through the trumpet and you can hear a private message. That's truly nuts. Through the trumpet. Also, like, who, someone came up with that when they were drunk. No doubt. Nobody said this is a good idea. That was at a bar. Someone came up with that. No doubt.

Okay, there's no other way. I do wonder how it was done because apparently circles of people would just see it moving by itself It had to be on a rig They just didn't understand. It had to just be on some fishing net fishing wire I mean like and also with the science of like listening into a conch shell and you hear like the ocean Yeah, it had to be that where you're just like maybe somebody could whisper from a certain part of the room and it would like Echo in who knows? Yeah, that just seems shady as fuck.

Yeah, and also why is the spirit trying to privately tell you a message in front of everybody? Finally, the only thing I can talk through, a trumpet. But you know, in a movie where there's the afterlife and they're trying to communicate, it would be something that stupid of like, oh, this is the only way I can talk to them and how would they figure that out? And it would be something as stupid of like, oh, this is the only way I can talk to them. And they would, how would they figure that out?

And it would be something as wild as a trumpet. Yeah, I guess in some sort of Whoopi Goldberg-esque type film, I could see that happening. But that's like the only comedy. What an obscure reference. Yeah, I don't know, it's just a picture. Classic Whoopi Goldberg. Literally the only person I'm casting in this flick,

and I won't accept any alternatives. If we're going with Whoopi, I hope Rosie O'Donnell's the one that plays the voice in the trumpet, because I feel like they would make a great pair. So anyway, Trump and mediumship, she also says like, that one I cannot explain, but don't trust it. But like, that's not, yeah, that's a sign in and of itself. Yeah. But I can't tell you what's going on, but I can tell you it's bullshit. Yeah.

Like, and even that one, by the way, it wasn't like this reporter had some novel opinion about Trump at mediumship. A lot of people side-eyed it. Even then, they were like, this is too fucking weird for this to have Trumpet. That's like a Disney level. Like, that's just silly. Yeah. It's too fantastical. It's being discovered at the same time as dinosaurs. Like this too much is going on. I have to believe only one. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Lilydale also room for floating trumpets and velociraptors. Okay. We got to pick one.

You know, at least one person, one spiritual stuff at time was like the ghost of a dinosaur has something to say to us. I was wondering this when you said they were happening at the same time. I was like, could you channel it? Right? Maybe. Maybe they whispered into the trumpet an entire life story, and that biopic became Jurassic Park.

Who knows? That's beautiful. So Lily Dale also has mediums who practiced slate writing or automatic writing. And the same New York Times reporter said that that one was kind of like a neutral. That's kind of what I was gonna guess next on the level, like automatic writing.

Because there's no way to prove it. I feel like there's a lot of wiggle room there. Yeah, like I feel like I do believe you can practice that, but I also believe there are ways both intentionally and not intentionally to just kind of make phone it in. Like pick it up. I think at least when this report came out, they were like, there's really no way to tell.

Like it's interesting clairvoyance if they can anticipate what is gonna happen before I even know what's happening. Now this reporter said what most of us would probably say, that the most elite type of mediumship is when people could summon spirits to actually appear before you, where you can see the person.

Like when, like seeing, literally seeing a fucking ghost. That's, which I think, I don't, it doesn't really go into it, but I'm assuming what she means is more than like Something that's obviously cheesecloth, but like seeing your dead mother in front of you but I feel like even that's not a thing anymore, right like It's not so a lot of that was probably phony too Probably was but I think

My take on it was that the reporter was like, this would definitely be the most believable thing. But it probably doesn't happen a lot. However, with each style of mediumship, there ended up being frauds, even the ones that we're kind of iffy on, like automatic writing. Mediumship advisor. Yeah.

Oh! Trip advisor, just trip. Spiritual trip, nope. What? I just told it to you medium ship advisor No, you don't like it. I think I think you have to emphasize ship so it sounds like trip Oh, I see you know ship advisor. It took me that whole time to come up with so I'll get back to you So back to you. So with every type of mediumship that this reporter discussed there were frauds found out and there were specific tools used for each type of service that helped a fraud get business. So a trumpet, a floating trumpet. The trumpet was the only one that the reporter was like,

I can't explain it, but I don't believe it. Because probably they took the string off when she came in and they were like, what do you mean? You make it float. Yeah, like cut it off and then now prove it. It's like, well, okay. Yeah, so well, so for etherealization, they said that smoke could be created with chemicals.

Voices could be made because it like, let's say like, oh, please say something in the room. Voices would just come from somebody else shouting through a tube in another room or a tube in the ceiling. So it sounded kind of echoey and farther away. Or people could learn to throw their voice and with ventriloquism in slate writing. There was apparently a special ink that was light sensitive. So people, the mediums would actually write the messages in advance before the seance,

and then just, like a script, lead people to get certain answers. And then when you turn the light on, you would see the ink fade into existence. That's just silly. OK. But also scientifically amazing in the 1800s. How did someone create that?

And where is it today? And since we got out of all these scams, you know? They went from Morse code to light sensitive ink real quick. Because of this tactic, a lot of slate writing mediums who wanted to actually make sure their reputation was safe, they offered all light sessions to make sure that we're never turning the light off, you will see us writing in real time

without anything showing up. There was also spirit paintings, spirit painting sessions, have you heard of these? Yeah, they had them at that psychic convention I went to. I didn't do one, but my friend had one done of her grandmother. Interesting. It did kind of look like her.

She was skeptical, but she was like, it's a nice drawing. It looks kind of like my grandma, so. That's nice. They have my shoe of my grandma. That picture, we still don't totally grandma, that picture, we still don't totally know who that is, but it's a very pretty lady. I don't know who it is, but.

So, Lily Dale was also known for hosting spirit painting sessions, especially with two acts called the Bang Sisters and the Campbell Brothers. The sisters and brothers loved getting together. It's like family bands, you know? It's like they're just hitting the road. I feel like, because they also have the Fox sisters, the Davenport brothers.

I feel like the second that it's keeping it in the family, I immediately call bullshit. You called bullshit the minute we started our podcast. You were like, something's bad here. I took one look at you and I went, something smells fishy, yeah. And then you brought your sister into the fold, I didn't even know you had a sister when I first met you,

and then she's like the bonus Jonas, all of a sudden I'm like. She sure is. I'm like, there's more of you? When does it end? Surprise, never. So, yeah, anytime I hear of a sibling duo doing mediumship, I think your parents are just using you to get money for the family.

Or the siblings in general. That's my kind of my gut feeling. Like I feel like that or or you're just using it like yeah, like a family band. Like you have some sort of talent, quote unquote, whether that's deceiving people or it's real or whatever, and you're using it. But also your family, like that's exactly the people that you would tell all your lies to and like who would like back you

if you ever got called out, you know? And who would also benefit from it, yeah. Yeah, fair point, fair point. These sets of siblings, the Bang sisters and Campbell brothers, they were known for their spirit paintings, where seance guests would gather at Lilydale around a blank canvas and paints, but no brushes, no cup of water, anything,

just paint in front of you, which I feel like was just for the vibe. And the medium would go into a trance, call upon a spirit, and say, like, who are you? Show yourself using the paints, and paint yourself so we can all see you. And eventually, paint would just start appearing on the canvas.

OK, well, that's silly. And a portrait would show up. Just like light-sensitive ink, they ended up finding out that it was water-sensitive paint. And I'm sure the seance leader was probably like, oh, let me put some water on the canvas for you. Yeah, okay. So that's not what I meant when I said

there were spirit painting at the convention. They like actually, yeah, channeled, yeah. But interesting, okay. Well, some mediums who actually, this is why I assumed that that wasn't what happened to you is because mediums have actually been found guilty like in the court of law for fraud. You can prove it.

Because it's just, I think, too obvious. This reporter who came to Lilydale, who I've been talking about, they tried to debunk one of the medium methods, or they tried to debunk each of the media methods and, like I said earlier, could not figure out the trumpet trick. So I think it was just like you said,

they hid all the evidence before this reporter could get to them. But this did launch a huge investigation when the reporter was getting pictures of seances and in pitch black, I guess flash photography was still a big thing and like people weren't expecting it. And so when they said, yeah you can take pictures during the seance,

they didn't know the reporter would be able to take pictures in the dark. And this reporter literally got a picture of the hotel staff helping the seance leaders as the spirits move things around. Okay, I hope they got paid for that shit. The NDAs must have been insane. I mean, damn.

When he got these photos of literal employees of the hotel helping in the sessions, a fraud investigation was launched immediately. Many were found guilty, which actually Lilydale was happy about because it was like, good, get the bad people out of our camp. We wanna be taken seriously. The medium. Like we want to be taken seriously.

The mediums who work here want to be taken seriously. We want our guests who come here and work with mediums to like be able to trust us. We don't want our reputation damaged. So take them all out. So they were excited that now they could openly say, we have done what we can and we can offer honest mediumship services. This helps also the mediums because a lot of them, like I said, say we have done what we can and we can offer honest mediumship services. This helps also the mediums because a lot of them, like I said,

were women at a time where they couldn't get jobs anywhere else. And so, or it was harder to get jobs. A lot of them were making a hundred dollars a day as mediums, which back then was four grand. Oh, a day? A day. Holy shit. I mean a quarter million people are coming in every summer, you know, so, or every year.

So anyway, the people working there were like, thank God. Unfortunately though, more fraud cases come out all over the country, which like, you know, probably thanks Houdini in a lot of ways for that. But throughout, as spiritualism grew and grew and grew, more mediums show up and then more fraud cases, more frauds come out. So eventually over-

It's not you, it's not me, it's Houdini. Yeah, it's not me, it's not you, it's Houdini. And I feel like certainly he was a factor of that, but a lot of people were being exposed as frauds during this time. I mean, 11 million people as spiritualists. There's a, oh, my YouTube decided to go off, all right. 11 million people who are spiritualists

and 35,000 practicing mediums, there's gonna be a lot of fraud out there and unfortunately there was so much fraud that people started being kinda disillusioned and jaded by it and they were, and spiritualism very quickly kind of felt the wayside because people just felt like they couldn't trust anyone. That's so much of a bummer. Yeah. Too many reputations of mediums were damaged where people just stopped feeling like they could rely on this. And any convincing evidence was now associated with like entertainment.

And soon all that was attractive to people at Lilydale in the world of mediumship was just classic psychic clairvoyant services. Like there was no more of, like you said, the etherealization or. I see just the bare bones of it, like the basics. Exactly. Like people, I think it honestly, and this is still messed up, but there are still a lot of frauds out there. I think it just got boiled down to the things you just can't prove.

Like you could prove cheese cloth as ectoplasm, you could prove lights and smoke and mirrors, but you can't prove good guesses. You can't prove a floating trumpet, Em. You know, and weirdly trumpet mediumship, you can still get there. Only psychic readings and trumpets. But by the 1950s, Lily deals mediums were exclusively just psychic readers,

the ones that you would see today. Okay. And it went from the 18 sevents where it was every type of act you could ever imagine to now just classic readers. One person who lives there and works there even said, we don't do Ouija boards, we don't do tarot, we don't do crystal balls. That's going to get you in trouble. We don't do any of the toys. Oh, toys.

All right. Relax. balls, that's going to get you in trouble. We don't do any of the toys. Oh, OK. The toys. All right. Relax. Yeah, he was like, just trust my mind power, and that's all you need to know. In the 1980s, Lily Dale's image shifted even further because members got more into the new agey stuff versus traditional spiritualism, and mediumship

moved further and further away from what Lillydale was originally intended to be like. Today it still exists and there's, you can still go there and although technically, legally it is a hamlet, that's the, do you know what a hamlet is? Like a small town? Oh.

A tiny, tiny village. Yeah. I thought that was nice. Even though it is a small village? Oh. A tiny, tiny village. Yeah. I thought that was nice. Even though it is a small village or a hamlet, it does still have its own post office, fire department, and of course, churches. And they do free public daily readings where mediums will read an entire crowd

and deliver messages, kind of a la Long Island medium on a talk show. Like a group reading, yeah. Yeah. You can also get private meetings there. And fun fact, all of the mediums in Lilydale are also Lilydale residents, unless there's some sort of like special guest.

If you are a medium in Lilydale, you live there. So all the mediums know each other, which imagine the water cooler gossip. Please hit me up, TM, TM, TM. Please, that would be such a good show. I'm begging. This is proof. We came up with the first.

Please let us do it, please. This is like, okay, but if it ever happens, can you imagine if we at least got creator titles of that show? It's like Selling Sunset or something, where it's just a bunch of people who just hate each other, and like, maybe they don't hate each other,

but they all know too much about each other. I was gonna say, probably doesn't hate it, but there has to be some drama, like you know there has to be drama. Like, they love each other, but there's drama. Well, yeah, there's gotta be a black sheep in there. Someone has to hate someone else. Someone who's just like driving everyone crazy.

If you live in Lilydale, and you know who hates the other person, we won't even talk about it publicly, I just want to start the show and then let it unfold and watch as it happens. And also like, I feel like there could be, I'm sure this wouldn't happen all that often, but imagine the bit where like one of them is saying, someone's coming to me and saying that this bitch is talking about you down the road. We have to go find her. Like, oh my God, if the spirits got involved too, get out of here.

And then imagine if person A who hates person B, if their past unloved ones also hate each other and now they're like duking it out. Of drama of conflict. And you can almost like, you can say, oh no, like Betty told me that you were doing this behind the scenes. I know. And then you'd be like, no, you're lying.

Like, no, you know, I mean, man, this could be so good. Imagine like general paranoia, if like you don't like somebody, but imagine like, one of the braces, their prices and then everyone's like, what the hell? Like, I mean, it's just, imagine someone gets a bad, all the time. What if one of them, what the hell? I mean, it's just, imagine someone gets a bad, all the time! No, warping in the trumpet.

We're gonna be like, hey, we brought this prop. You know what would be a nice homage is if the theme song was, was, that we, Theme song was Rosie O'Donnell talking into a trumpet. Yes. Ha ha ha ha ha ha. Ha ha ha ha ha ha.

Ha ha ha ha ha ha. And it's Whoopi Goldberg narrating all this. Welcome to Lilydale. Also imagine like one of them gets a bad Yelp review, but then it's like, no, that was just automatic writing. I didn't say it. I channeled this bad Yelp review. What if an, okay, but this is perfect actual TV

behind the scenes producer magic because we're promoting the show while promoting us because in the first episode, they hear that we cover them on our podcast. And they're like, that show fucking sucks and then we lose all of our listeners. You know, hmm. I...

We got to make sure we have creative control on the show. Otherwise, we might be screwed. That's a very good point. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Anyway, I can't imagine a better show my entire life. I cannot imagine a better show. I'm so excited about it. I don't know how to, no it is. Eva?

It's not even happening. How do we, we must know somebody in a TV capacity. Yeah, our manager. Let's ask her to do it. Yeah. Get someone on the horn, on the trumpet, please. I need to make sure we make this show. Get me the Lilydale Assembly. I need to make sure we make this show.

Get me the Lilydale assembly. So all of the mediums, they live in Lilydale. You will find out about it in season one. And for all of those- No spoilers. And here's even more, think in reality show terms. For those who move there, you never actually own property because I guess since the house is owned

by a religious organization or the property is owned by a religious organization, you essentially lease your house. Oh, from, okay. So every couple seasons when the plot gets dry, we can just churn out new people. You'd be like, oh, your contract is up, you have to leave the house, We're putting new people in.

Evicted. To move there, here's the other thing. Because let's say you and I wanted to join the LDA assembly. And we want to be mediums there. Let's say you wanted to do paid services there. So if you want to work in Lillie Hill, you have to live there. Okay, you have to live there. That's one of the rules. They don't just let anyone in. You have to be a member in a good standing, in good standing of a spiritualist church for

at least a year. So step one, you got to go find a spiritualist church. Sounds like a lot of work for a year. And then you can apply. Only then can you move in. That's step one. But to join the LDA, the Lilydale Assembly, you also have to go through this test. You have to go through an audition essentially. So they have to know that you're a good medium.

And also if you've inherited property there and you live somewhere else, you must sell it to a member or join the assembly yourself. So you don't just get to have the property and then some are there. You have to be part of this assembly. I can't believe you can inherit property if it's not even owned by the people that live there.

I think it's like, let's say you're in like a five-year contract and you die in year two. I tried to sign up for a pool membership in our neighborhood and they were like, oh, well you have to buy a bond from someone. And I'm like, what? And they're like, yeah, you have to buy a bond and then you own part of the pool.

What the fuck? I'm like, I don't wanna own the pool, I just wanna go to the pool. What? So anyway. Yeah, so I want to do a little piggy dip in. That's about it. I was like, forget it. I'm out. Yeah. So maybe it's like that where you like, oh yeah, like a contract or like a yeah, that makes sense. Well, so if you don't want to live there, but you want to have the property, too bad you got to go to somebody else or you just got to move there yourself, but

Again to move there yourself and be a medium You have to pass this whole stupid test. So in 2022 the New York Times again They love talking about this thing the New York Times got a copy of Lily Dale's guide to becoming a medium in the community Not only do you have to be in good standing, all this stuff, blah, blah, blah, blah. You need to provide $150, a cover letter, three letters of recommendation, which I'm guessing is from like prior clients,

and proof of training, which it did help and go a long way if your training came from somebody else who was already living at the LDA. So Skillshare probably does not count. Because I took, I definitely took some classes on, well, it's you to me, whatever, but I'm sure that the certificate I downloaded as a PDF probably doesn't count.

Honestly, okay, this is kind of mean, but a lot of people there, it seems like they are older baby boomers. You could probably get away with it. Well, in that case, Canva. In that case, let's just start Photoshopping everything. I can Photoshop, I figured out. Then on top of that, you have to audition

as a medium, obviously. But not once, not twice, 25 times. Whoa! In 25 different public demonstrations. Publicly? Oh, I already have hives, okay. And then you have to participate in two different Monday night circles,

which is a public demonstration where paid audiences buy a ticket to also come. You must also conduct private readings in front of assembly members so they can supervise and they grade you. I'm out. Imagine we started this show a year ago

because in 2023 there were three prospective mediums who wanted to go live at Lilydale. Oh, last year. Which like, last year, 2023. Again, perfect setup for a TV show, by the way. We've got three really like gung ho happy mediums who just wanna live in Lilydale and they're about to start their big journeys

and adventures into the Lilydale assembly. Trying to get their spot. I mean, 25 public demonstrations. That's a lot of episodes. We could push this two seasons if we wanted. Eva, are you writing? Are you on the horn? Are you on the horn? Are you on the horn?

Think about the most content. Figure this out, stat. Are you on the floating horn? Are you on the trumpet? Somebody figure it out. So we could, and then, spoiler alert, oh, you know what we should do? Okay, so this is what happens.

The pilot episode, it does like a nonlinear time thing where it starts at the end where you see what happens and then we build to it. Because the way that this ends is those three- You're probably wondering how I ended up here. Yeah, those three prospective mediums sue the Lilydale assembly and that's the end of season one. Because-

By the way, the first part of it is you getting sued. By the way, this is how it begins. Are you guys in or what? Eva don't include that in the pitch because they're gonna say no. We can just try to low ball that one in later. Okay, this is how, here's, that's why I'm saying let's pretend that we started the show last year

because they wouldn't have known what was to come. We were just... They're already contractually obligated to be part of the filming. You know what I'm saying? We can decide who gets to or not. And then because we have creative control, we can decide what gets seen. You know what I'm saying? Okay. Perfect. Yeah, easy.

So they end up suing the Lilydale Assembly because of like, honestly, a miscommunication. That was really it. Uh, the, the members were told that they, they had to, they were going to be graded. And they had to get at least like an 82 point for something percent. All of them basically get around an 82 and fail anyway. And what happens is they found out that the passing score actually was changed by like the board to 85 and nobody told them Drama was kind of the whole thing but But that's the kind of thing that reality TV would really string you along with it already

It's like it's their their prime now for a TV show They already know how to create drama without even a camera around. It's as if it's. It's as if it's written in the stars. Eva? So are you there, Eva? Do something, thank God she finally responded. I'm like, Eva, have you even a little bit of an idea

how important this is? Imagine like, oh my God, like this is just meant for Bravo. I know it. So the Lilydale assembly responds that saying that even if you did get the passing score of 85, you might not have even become a medium because at the end of the day, the final decision really does come down

to the members opinions in general of you, which yikes first of all, because it's like even if you're smart enough, you can't even like sit at our table. Even if you approve yourself, yeah. But also, like. What, what?

Oh my God, that was scary. All these balloons just appeared. Oh, you were doing two? Oh, oh, because I was. All of a sudden like in the corner of my eye, I just see like balloons all over Em's face. Okay. You're not allowed to count with your hands

on this podcast anymore. Exactly. Right, right. So they're saying, you can't even sit with us even if you want to. They're saying the final decision, no matter how good you did, is really determined by what we think of you.

And then secret number three is that like, what if they're going off of what the spirits are telling them? You know, like what if you channel your spirit guides, right? Are these people going to be good for our community? Yeah, this just seems messy as hell. So I feel like there's two layers of are you likable? Yeah. And, uh, by the way, I have been at a fraternity. I know what it's like to judge people truly just by

vibes. Like, yeah, well, I know what it's like to judge people truly just by. Vibes. Yeah, well I mean like literally what you see in the movies of like after Rush showing every single one of their pictures on a screen and like going guess or no. This is seriously why I couldn't, I have hives again, this is why I was not in a sorority. I just, my brain was like you can't do this for your own survival, like you'll never make it out alive.

Like you'll be eaten alive. You know what I will say about the fraternity I joined? Not all of them are like that. I was in three, only one of them. Was it your favorite? And I remember thinking like, yikes, this is just, no, it was my least favorite. But I will say every single person got in,

whether or not we liked them, the only reason that they did it was to make sure everyone felt safe with everybody, which I really liked. So like there was, like there were some people where people straight up went, no, I don't want them to join. And if they didn't have a legitimate reason, it was like, oh, you're just being a bitch, then no. Then we're gonna put your picture on the PowerPoint

and talk about you and how much of a bitch you are. Yeah, the only person who got a no was a guy who made a lot of girls really uncomfortable. Oh, God, okay. And so in that moment, I was like, thank God we had this meeting because a lot of girls were able to be like, I'm not, I don't want him here.

And they said, okay, well then fuck that guy, he's not coming. So that was like, it was weirdly a positive experience for such a ass backwards way of handling things. So, but I have been in that, I can just see all these mediums in one room, all doing like whatever version of mediumship they do to like, they're like, oh, do we like this person?

No, I don't know. I can see someone going rogue and like doing a problematic version of that. Some people, like you mentioned earlier, saying this sounds like a cult, some people believe that this community is too insular and it's impossible to even get registered there if you just don't have connections.

And a lot of people think that these mediums are basically like the equivalent of like Neppo babies. If you don't know the right person, you can't get in. It doesn't even matter what your grade is. It's also, I will just say, very, very, very, very white. In fact, one reporter, I know, just in case anyone was wondering, one reporter literally called them conspicuously white.

Conspicuously, wow. And because yes, the spiritualist and free thinker movements were very progressive for the time, but they were still in an era of a lot of racial problems. I mean, we still have racial problems today. But I mean, if this camp opened in, believe it or not, I mean, think about like in the 1870s when this opened, I mean, 1860 was only, 1862 was only eight years before.

So, but because of, because at the time, this was where, this was a big space where white women prevailed because, or you know, it's what we think of when we hear spiritualist communities, a lot of white people. And this was during a time where a lot of people were fighting for white women's suffrage. A lot of white women felt safe in those spaces,

which means throughout the years, white women still feel safe there. So today, if you go to Lilydale, a lot of the mediums there are white women, and they have stayed white women. But just wanted to give that little history a shout out, just so you know what you're walking in on. And Shifting Gears, one of my things

that I really like about Lilydale's early roots that they've held onto is their take on death, where they're like, oh, there is no death, it's all an illusion, it's just like the change, or a graduation from this plane and they even go on to say this is a quote once we die we have to accept that we no longer have a physical body and then we have to travel somewhere to de-stimulate before we can learn a new way to communicate with the world. That is so interesting to de-stimulate and then you can communicate. I've heard that.

I've heard that you need time to adjust on the other side before you can communicate. Yeah, so the next point I have is that de-stimulating can take a while and only after that process can you communicate with mediums from the other side. So a lot of people get mad when they have a recent death in the family and then they go to one of these communities and they don't hear from that person and it's because that person is still taking time to adjust. They need a break. In this way, the community at Lilydale feels like they're offering

healing services or imparting wisdom from people who have passed on. And another Lily Dell medium said that mediums only deliver the messages there not to interpret them. So I don't know if that's like a running theme there that none of them try to interpret their messages. They just kind of stream of conscious for you. That way you can receive it however you need to. And then again, last mention of a reality show,

despite their multiple lawsuits, I've only mentioned a few, but there are others. Many people still come to Lilydale about 30,000 each summer and Christian protesters think about the, this feels like a Parks and Rec episode. Hell, yes it does. Christian protesters gathered there during the summer to accuse visitors and residents of witchcraft. Oh, that's fun that they have like a summer there too. You know, and they say they don't, but they do. One Lillydale resident said she loves how normalized it is to talk about the dead there

and to speak with the dead there. Because I can imagine this in a scene of this show. She said that she walks down the street and her neighbor will say, oh, your aunt's walking with you and it's her dead aunt. I would be able to see her. Do you think that happens? Like, no, I know where my aunt's around, okay?

Don't act like you know my aunt better than I do. That's probably why they hate each other because one of them thinks the other is a phony. And then imagine how quickly it could spiral into a Houdini episode of like, prove it and I'll give you a million dollars. And then like they spend the whole episode trying to prove it.

Like for real into this. And I feel like I'm really into this. And I'm looking online. Me too. Here, they have summer courses. They have workshops this summer. I think you need to go and just suss out the potential talent, you know what I'm saying?

Let's see, I hope it's online because I don't really have time to go. I mean, I would love to. Info and purchase tickets. Let's see, join us as we, I mean, again, like it's not telling me if it's here or, just kidding, it's in the octagon building. Oh, man. June 22nd.

That's the day we're doing our by the way, folks. That's the day we're doing our live book preorder thingy. Majig, what's it called? It's it's called Talk Shop Live. Talk shop and we are doing you pre-order during the live. We'll be talking about the book. You can pre-order signed copies

and there'll be like little giveaway and stuff. So anyway, just throwing that out there because that's what's happening June 22nd. And I suppose that's why I will not be attending the Lilydale Assembly. Yeah, if you're not going to the Lilydale Assembly on June 22nd, there's no reason to not go to our Talk Shop Live. Yeah, you're not busy then, so you better be there. You're not going to the Lilydale Assembly on June 22nd, there's no reason to not go to our talk shop. Yeah, you're not busy then, so you better be there.

You're not busy. You could actually probably also do it from Lilydale Assembly. So actually there's no reason to not do it. Wait, why don't I go and just do it from there? I think we'll just do that. That would be great. That would actually be really on brand for us.

Bring a camera and a producer and just see what happens. I won't look. Ha ha ha. Ha ha ha. Ha ha ha. Ha ha ha. You know, I have a trumpet everywhere as you know. Anyway, that is the Lilydale assembly. That was fascinating. They have a really nice website folks, by the way.

And they have some really old, beautiful drawings like of what it I assume looked like in the 1800s on the homepage, which is very cool. Oh, cool. We're ready to take the next step and get a private reading. We made a lot of fun of it, but I do like to think that they'd know what they're doing. We talked a lot about frauds. I'm hoping that they really did suss out all the frauds.

Hopefully. Hopefully they don't mind a little poking. And then on the registered mediums page, you can go to each of these mediums websites like their specific website and see like what kind of work they do So if you like vibe with one of them That's kind of fun You know what I would be curious about though is and this I Should have mentioned this earlier, but I'm like those three mediums They didn't make it because they didn't score high enough

or whatever and then there was a whole lawsuit. How did none of them see that coming? That's the age old question of like, as mediums. Oh come on, psychics never won the lottery, you know. Yeah, not even like, oh, you didn't see that, you didn't know that they changed the scoring grade, but like how did your body not tell you like,

there's gonna be a whole lawsuit, it's gonna be so annoying. Maybe they but like, how did your body not tell you, like, there's gonna be a whole loss. It's gonna be so annoying. Maybe they were like, you're meant to do this. Maybe. And it'll be a complicated venture, a complicated journey. Anyway, no, I thought it was super interesting. I really do think it should be a TV show. I think it would be such a good TV show.

I would again like to say that this is proof, this is our IP that we are going to purchase from them, please, if they allow us to. If they so humbly, if they let our humble selves use them for content. That would be nice. And then if we find out that they're actually super problematic, we pull out immediately. Oopsie daisy. We are skedaddling as fast as we can. Alrighty, I am excited for this one today. This is one I've been wanting to cover for months.

Maybe longer? This is a story that I first heard on Dateline, the podcast. And then I went and watched the episode which is pretty simp. I think it's the same but obviously there's like Visual you know on the on the actual episode so I watched it there too, and I was just Taken by the story. It is a wild one. This is the story of Nicholas Oliverian. I Just I'm just to jump into it. It's a doozy and a half, okay? Okay.

So in December of 2021 is where we're going to start the story. An Irish man named Arthur Knight lay critically ill in the hospital in Glasgow, Scotland. He was being treated for, as many people were in December 2021, COVID-19. And his condition was so poor that he could no longer breathe on his own and had to be placed on a ventilator. And because many people who were placed on ventilators during COVID-19 treatment never recovered, it was a very scary time. The damage done to his body could mean he may not survive even if he did come off the ventilator, but he did power through. He survived. And once he was off the ventilator, Arthur began to recover slowly but surely.

And he beat the odds and survived what a lot of people unfortunately did not. But Arthur, as we know now, was tenacious. He was an orphan, and he had made his own way in life. He'd been born in Ireland, worked and studied hard to break into the corporate world of communications after moving to England for work. But while he was still in the hospital recovering from the three month long medically induced coma that he had to be in for his COVID treatment, Arthur was suddenly fighting a new battle. That came in the form of Scottish authorities making a shocking accusation against him. They believe that Arthur Knight was not who he claimed to be. According to them, his name wasn't even Arthur. He wasn't an Irish-born academic and former orphan.

In fact, he wasn't even Irish. Authorities said that he was actually an American man named Nicholas Oliverdian. OK, are we thinking he they found this out because, like, they had to figure out his medical records because of COVID or something? Not quite, but good guess. OK. I'm imagining somebody out there during COVID and identity, a second identity was figured out by accident. So they said he was American man, Nicholas

Aliverdian, which would be bad news for Arthur because Nicholas Aliverdian was a wanted man for crimes committed in the United States. Arthur said, um, I don't think it would have been possible for me to commit those crimes because I have never even been to the United States. Okay. Bold statement. He only wanted to be left alone to recover from covid in peace, but the authorities were not ready to let this suspicion drop. They were determined to prove that Arthur was Nicholas,

which would be difficult because Nicholas Oliverian, the man that they were claiming Arthur was, also happened to be dead. Oh, okay. I know, a lot of spinning plates we've got to keep our eyes on, okay? So Nicholas, otherwise known as Nick Oliverdian, he had been, so we've got Arthur, right? He's recovering over there. They're like, we think you're Nick Oliverdian. Everyone's like, wait, but Nick Alverdian's dead.

Let me tell you about Nick Alverdian, OK? We're going to rewind here. Nicholas Alverdian, he was a public political figure. He had grown up in the US in the foster care system. He had endured terrible abuse. He had survived rape and torture at the hands of his foster parents, and he became determined to cast light on the failures in the foster care system that

allowed for horrors like this to persist. So as a teenager, Nick Oliverdian began doing clerical work at the Rhode Island House of Representatives. Those who knew him said he was extremely intelligent and diligent. He would read through these lengthy, complicated bills that even adult legislators struggled to comprehend. And as a result, he began speaking publicly to advocate on behalf of young people who lived in shelters and had uncertain housing situations, doing a lot of really good work. He believed children like himself deserved safe

and competent care and that the state was failing them. So this advocacy he was doing started to pave the way for real changes in law and policy regarding children like him. And people who heard him speak were very, very moved by the stories that he shared of his own experiences, of his siblings' experiences, his peers. One man even described Nick as reminiscent of a Dickens character because he just had this like sort of down and out past and he was kind of finally, you know,

pulling himself up by the bootstraps and he really wanted to make a change. So he continued to advocate for systemic change all the way through into adulthood. But in 2020, Nick shocked everyone with a tragic announcement that he was dying of late stage non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. He told everyone he was only expected to survive

for another few weeks. And due to his involvement in political advocacy and lawmaking, the announcement made its way into the news. So shortly afterward, Nick's wife, Louise, announced that he had in fact died at only 32 years old. So he was cremated, the ashes were spread at sea. And when he passed away, Nick's uncle, who had been in contact with Nick, expressed a lot of pride for who Nick had been, what he had accomplished. And Nick's wife ended up contacting a church to request a ceremony, like a celebration of life, you

know, a funeral in Nick's honor. And she asked for multiple elected officials to speak at the funeral. And this was like a big project to pull off, especially for the church to be getting kind of this assignment from her. But many people believe Nick had done so much good work in this area that, Many people believe Nick had done so much good work in this area that they didn't mind doing a more prestigious sendoff to honor his life's work and give him a bigger funeral. Okay. That's nice. Back to Arthur Knight. If Arthur Knight knew who Nicholas Aliverdian had been, sure, at this point, what's the

big deal? You think I'm that great guy who died, okay? I mean, could be confused with someone worse, right? Unfortunately, there was more to Nick's story, however, than the political activism and advocacy work that he did. So I'm going to tell you a little bit more about the dark side of Nicholas. Nicholas grew up in Rhode Island, where he and his siblings, like I said, endured a very tumultuous childhood. His dad, Jack Oliverdian, couldn't maintain a healthy relationship and abused the women in his life. Jack, so his father, his biological father, had a violent criminal record which included domestic violence, assault, violating protective orders filed against him by multiple women, Nick's mother Diana. And his mother Diana,

DeFilippo, married Jack in 1984 when she was 21 and he was 10 years older. Nicholas was the first, their first son. He was born July 11th, 1987. And Diana pretty much supported the family by waitressing because Jack usually didn't have a job. He really struggled to maintain a job. because Jack usually didn't have a job. He really struggled to maintain a job. And the family moved often and was very fraught. They fought all the time. There was a lot of violence within the household. It was just a very toxic place to grow up. In 1989, which was six months after Nick's younger brother Joseph was born, Diana filed for divorce. She moved out with both of her sons in early January of 1990 and filed a restraining order against her ex Jack, which was upheld, accepted

and upheld by the court. And by December of 1990, Diana had a third child named Deondra. At this point, the divorce was final. Jack is out of the picture. And Diana tried to stay in touch with Jack's family. Like she was pretty, she was still kind of close with her in-laws, even though obviously she had this like no contact order with her ex. So yeah, and I think Jack's family kind of, they were open enough and I'll quote them in a minute, but they were open enough to say,

yeah, he wasn't good to his family. Like even though he's our blood relative, like we are not proud of that. I can understand that person. Right. Yes. I think a lot of us know. Yes, you get it. I'm on it. I'm on it. So Jack's brother Mike said that the family saw Diana and three kids often, and Nick was only three and a half when his parents were divorced, and he was pretty well loved. His family described him as a great young man, always smiling, never getting into any trouble, very polite.

One uncle said that Nick was a happy child, even though he had kind of faced this turbulent upbringing. And one of Jack's family members said about Jack, he wasn't a good father, I'll openly admit to that. When he was totally out of the picture, he didn't see the children again. They all seemed to go downhill from there. So, unfortunately, Diana must not have felt safe or confident with the arrangement she had with the three kids, because four or five years

after the divorce, she took all three children more or less into hiding from the whole Oliverdean family and they did yeah and they did not know where she had moved at some and it's her and the three kids. So she just kind of uprooted and went somewhere secret sort of. At some point someone must have been concerned with their home life because the State Department of Children, Youth, and Families intervened. And they got to the house, determined this was not a safe place for the three children.

We don't necessarily have details on that. But we do know that Nick was removed from Diana's care and spent some time in foster homes and treatment facilities, which is then how later he becomes this kind of advocate for kids in the system. He reportedly struggled with his mental health at a young age. He was diagnosed with quote unquote behavioral issues. The Alavardian family was not contacted at all, even though they had been pretty close with their nieces or their niece and nephews.

So they were not even contacted or given the option before the kids were sent into foster care. In 1994, Diana met a man named David Rossi, which by the way is definitely the name of the man in Criminal Minds. Sorry, just like every time I say it, I'm like David Rossi. So side note, if you're wondering why that rings a bell, that is why. Well, imagine the character or the actor playing that and then all of a sudden this story comes out and he goes,

Uh-oh. Yeah, so David Rossi played by, let's see, who plays David Rossi. Uh oh. Uh oh. Whoopsies. Yeah, so David Rossi played by, let's see, who plays David Rossi? David Rossi. Oh shit. Meta, it's Meta. So Meta, Joe Mantegna, Joe Mantegna, John Mantegna, I don't know how to say that.

Anyway. Joe Montana? No. Ha ha ha. Ha ha ha. Mantegna. Mantegna, okay, cool. I don't know. Joe Montana? No. Montania. Montania. OK, cool.

I don't know. In 1994, Diana met David Rossi at a restaurant where she was waitressing. And he was performing because he was a professional singer, entertainer, and Engelbert Humberdink impersonator. Girl, what? Hang on. Say it again.

OK. Bring it back. This is where I tell you one of the craziest things that's ever happened to me, which was going to be my reason for drinking this week. And I will get to the full story next week because we don't have time. But I had asked for a sign from the universe and I was doing this meditation and do you know who Engelbert Humperdinck is? No.

He's like a British pop singer from like the 80s, 90s. And just with the most ridiculous name. And I was doing this meditation and it was like, contact your guides or whatever. And all of a sudden I just heard the name Englebert. And I went, well, that's just ridiculous. Like who the hell is named Engelbert? The only one I know is that weird impersonator guy. Yeah, not the impersonator guy. I'm sorry that weird pop star guy. And so I was like, oh, that's random. But then I kind of thought about it and I was like, oh Engel in German means angel. So I was like, oh, that's kind of fun. You know, Engel means angel like, oh, who knows maybe anyway, so then I said then the person who was leading the meditation said ask for a sign

Like if you're not confident in the name that you heard ask for a sign that maybe That maybe you'll you'll that they'll confirm it So today that way I would have been the way I would have been begging for a different sign I'd be like what on earth did you mean anything else? I literally was writing down like could it mean Bert and then my brain was like nope angle Bert So then I was like, that's crazy Bert? And then my brain was like, nope, Engelbert. So then I was like, that's crazy. So I'm running around, I'm doing stuff,

I'm bringing Leota to music class, et cetera. And then I'm like, oh, let me go do a read through of these notes. And I'm like reading through and all of a sudden I get to, he was a professional Engelbert Humperdink impersonator. And I went, are you fucking kidding me? That's amazing. But also how-

I was like, I've never heard that name anywhere, ever. Engelbert Humperdinck sounds like a slur on Barney. Like you're being a real Engelbert Humperdinck, if you know what I'm saying. So yeah, so that was the weirdest, isn't that weird? Like I was just like, is this the universe making fun of me? I don't know, it was such a shocking moment and I have an app that reads my notes out loud to me,

so I'm like driving and I literally just heard Engelbert Humperdinck impersonator and I went, holy shit, yeah, so anyway. Weird, so what does that mean? Does that mean like you're on the right path? Does it mean that you're doing was like a mediumship meditation. It was like, Oh, contact your guides who are going to help you with, with your mediumship abilities. And so I was like, okay, so I guess you have a specific guide that can almost ask acts like a bouncer. If you're doing mediumship, where they kind of are the ones that facilitate it and like,

bring people in and out, et cetera. Like, I don't know, I always think of it as like a bouncer almost. So they were like, oh, do a meditation to figure out, I'm taking a course online, it's a whole thing, to figure out their name. And I fucking heard Engelbert and I went, that's ridiculous. And then she said, if you don't feel confident

or you feel like maybe you just made that up, why don't you ask for a sign? Literally within a day. I saw this. I don't think I've ever read that person's name anywhere in the universe. Well, Eva's asking the same question I had, which is it was it's the the five finger to the six fingered guy from, Oh my God, Humperdinck. Well, no, no, Humperdinck was the king or something that Princess Buttercup was gonna marry. But that was the only time I've ever heard that name. And when you first said Humperdinck impersonator, I was like, an actor already impersonated

Humperdinck on Princess Bride. Oh my God, you're totally right. Prince Humperdinck, yeah. But the Engelbert part, for sure, I had not heard anywhere. And the fact that angel means angel. It's weird, right? I feel like what I would have read from that

would have been, oh, my angel's name is Bert. And then for the rest of his life, I would have been dead naming, not dead naming, misnaming my angel. Dead naming in a different way. I would have been like, oh, Bert, angel. I would have just come up with a whole other name for my angel, be like, oh, that's Bert.

And you'd be like, my name's Todd. I need a sign to confirm that, because that's crazy talk. And then the universe said, what about this? And I went, are you kidding me? That's crazy. So anyway, I don't know what it means. I looked up the meaning of the name. The internet is like, it means Engelbert Humperdinck,

the only person who's ever been named that. So I was like, I don't know what it means. But anyway, that's my side note on Engelbert Humperdinck. My life this week has been a series of very weird synchronicities. I'll get to that in next week because I have a whole story about it and like some creepy, crazy shit that happened. But that was part of it. Anyway, so she meets this guy and they have an immediate spark and Diana tells David, sorry, I have these three it. Anyway, so she meets this guy and they have an immediate spark. And Diana tells David, sorry, I have these three kids. They're so difficult to manage on my own. I don't have time for a relationship.

But David really wanted to be with her. So he's like, you know what? Why don't you bring the kids over to meet me? She does. And in a later interview, David said, when I tell you they destroyed my apartment, they were like terrorists. Yeah, it gets dicey because David recalls

that eight-year-old Nick regularly hit his mother Diana, beat his younger siblings. None of them seemed to have any boundaries or like, you know, sense of private space or physical gentleness with each other. Did David Rossi stick around after that? He sure did. So Diana told David that the children were quote unquote

medicated and almost never left the house because she couldn't handle their behavior. So we're already seeing quite a bit of a tumultuous situation here. David was determined to stay with Diana, but he wasn't, this sounds terrible, really interested in her kids. She told him he would have to adopt them if he married her. So he tried to negotiate, but it was a deal breaker.

So he finally relented and agreed to adopt Nick and his siblings, which I'm sure feels great as a kid. Like they're debating like, well, I don't want to adopt your kids. I just want to marry you. And she's like, well, you have to adopt the kids. And he's like, well, I don't want to. And then fine, I'll do it. Like, I'm sure that doesn't feel very loving, but whatever. Yeah.

So he relented and he agreed to adopt Nick and his siblings and they got married in 1996, but things only got worse from here. Nick was nine, Joseph six, Deonjur five, but their stepdad felt totally out of his depth. He felt like he could not handle them. He described Nick as wicked. He's nine, remember? Now, of course we know he needed professional help, right?

This child has been traumatized. I already mentioned rape and torture at the hands of foster parents. Like this kid has been diagnosed with behavioral issues. Like this child needs professional help. David says he did receive ample support, which I would hedge my bets that might not be true. But according to him,

they took Nick to see counselors and some counselors came to their home. He was hospitalized more than once for mental health and behavioral treatment. And then things get iffy again, because David claims Nick was diagnosed with narcissistic personality disorder. Now, according to a paper in a 1989 medical journal, which would have been the, at the time, the up-to-date medical information, narcissistic personality disorders can be identified in childhood and adolescence using the same diagnostic criteria as for adults. However, we know now that that diagnosis is not appropriate for a child because children's personalities grow and change and shift and react to their circumstances. And it's normal for children to go through

phases of what we might call selfish behavior or narcissistic behavior. They're children, you know, especially in an unstable environment where they are not having their emotional physical safety needs met, you know. And so neglectful, abusive, tumultuous environments are often considered risk factors for children developing narcissistic traits. And his childhood definitely fits that, but now you don't diagnose a child with narcissistic personality disorder.

This is an adult assessment, if that makes sense. So when Nick was 12, he got into an argument with his mom, Diana, in a store while the family was in Florida for a Disney World trip. According to David, the stepfather, David Rossi, Nick punched his mom, Diana, and David said he lost it at Nick. He said all the years that had built up kind of overflowed. Saw red exactly.

Yeah, he just kind of saw red. According to David, he hit Nick until he was bloody. He said, quote, I mean, I broke his nose. I couldn't stop. And this is a 12 year old. Wow. Police responded to the scene and arrested David. But then when they saw the history of Nick's mental health diagnoses, they said, nevermind, you're clear.

Which is like, oh, okay, this child has been traumatized and has behavioral issues. You can hit him if you want, you know? I mean, what the fuck? It's just so wild to me. So in late 1999, 12-year-old Nick is now in and out of foster care and inpatient treatment. He returns home Christmas Eve, but Diana and David

ask the state to remove him from the home a few days later because of conflict within the family, and he was placed in a shelter for boy youth. Before long- Sorry, did his siblings stay behind? This next slide is before long, his younger siblings were also in state care. So, yeah.

Oh damn, okay. Do we know if Nick was quote the worst behaviorally? Yes, I believe he. Or were all of his siblings equally? Perhaps partially because he was the oldest. You know, he would beat his younger siblings and so I'm sure a lot of that played into it. especially because he was the oldest, he would beat his younger siblings. And so I'm sure a lot of that played into it,

but he was definitely the one that stood out as the most behaviorally out of control. Yeah. Sure. So Diana and David did end up divorcing in 2003. And this was right around the time Nick began to make a name for himself in state politics. And remember, he's pretty young. He was born in, oh God, don't make me do math.

He was born in 87 and it's 2003. What does that mean? 87 in 2003 is 1316. So 1617, that matches up, is when he starts to get involved in state politics. And he's like this young guy and he has this tumultuous background, right? And he's a very engaging speaker. And that's when I said people had this idea of him as like this almost Dickensian character, like oh, he's like pulling himself back up to save the world and all that kind of thing. Right, he's so strong and brave and-

Yes, exactly. And like being so young and having seen so much really added to that. So a state representative and his wife actually attempted to adopt Nick after hearing him speak. Like that is how moved they were. But they were warned- Oh, no. He's got a way with words. He's is how moved they were. But they were warned.

He's got a way with words. They were warned against it however, by family court chief, Judge Jeremiah S. Jeremiah. What a name. Girl, what? Are you kidding me? His name is Jeremiah Jeremiah? Jeremiah S. Jeremiah and that is judged to you.

The honorable. So it's Jeremiah. The the S stands for still Jeremiah, still Jeremiah. JD or something. So they they tried to do this. And then the family court judge was like, I wouldn't do that if I were you, which is like Oh, okay. That's uh alarming. Why?

And he said there's something wrong with nick Sorry, there's a dog Oh, don't you miss the days when geo would just bark through our entire recording? I miss when he would be in our literal laps barking into the microphone. At least now it's a little distant. Yeah, so this guy, this judge is like, something's wrong with him. Sorry, not a good idea. So in 2006, Nick was 18 and living with a couple in a short term foster agreement that would terminate when he turned 19.

But the couple cared for Nick and remained a part of his life throughout his young adulthood. And it was just about then his like young adulthood era that things really began to unravel. Now at this point, he's going by Nick Rossi. He has taken on his stepdad's last name. And we're in the year 2008. So 17 plus five. Wait, yeah, thank you. I'm so bad. So 21, 22. In 08, Nick was living in Ohio, where two women at Sinclair Community College in Dayton

accused him of sexual assault. Yeah. Interesting, huh? History's repeating itself. One of the women reported that she had lunch with Nick and he offered to escort her to her next class. They got to a stairwell, he cornered her against a wall and raped her.

She told an interviewer, yeah. She told an interviewer, it was broad daylight. Someone even walked past, but she said that they just kind of froze and the person thought they were just like a couple having PDA, you know? Right. Like, yeah, someone, I mean, in our high school, the stairwell was known where people would

hook up. So I feel like if you just heard someone hooking up, you just kept it moving, you know? And she was like paralyzed with fear because she actually said she thought he was going to kill her on the stairwell And so, you know, I mean terrifying. Oh my god So he rapes her then he just lets her go and she was so in shock that she went to class Like she just walked straight to class. She just was like I couldn't process Yeah, yeah

Can't blame her. That's like fully just like, oh, I don't know how to react. I guess I'm just gonna keep moving. Just your body goes into autopilot, right? You're just onward normal life. And so she goes to class. Guess what? She walks out of class. He's standing there waiting for her.

And he's there to apologize. Oh no. I don't think so, my friend. She said, he apologized to me. He said he couldn't help it. I was just so beautiful. Oh, you fucking vommetous. He begged her not to press charges.

And she's like, sure, sure, sure, sure, sure, sure. Immediately immediately walked to the police station. At first, authorities said that, you said that they're trying to find evidence. It's hard because there's not much evidence. It's just kind of like an accusation. But when Nick finds out, he ends up filing his own charges claiming she had assaulted him. And so.

Please. That's by the way, law and order. Not like David Rossi on the case, you know what I mean? So he says, oh, no, she assaulted me. And that's when investigators go, all right, buddy, you said enough. We were trying to figure out an angle to like take this on. You've just given us one. So you're being sketchy as fuck. So he basically walked himself right into that scenario. And he was convicted of misdemeanor sexual imposition

public indecency, which wasn't quite the extent of what he had done. However, it was a charge that required him to register as a sex offender. So at least he was on a list. And this is like Mr. Advocacy, right? This is like public figure. And so that condition made Nick's accuser feel guilty

because she was like, shit, now he's on the sex offender list. But she also had this kind of internal debate of, well, I don't want someone else to be hurt. And as a victim, I feel like you end up with this double whammy or quadruple whammy, whatever it may be, of not only am I now responsible for speaking up for myself, now I feel responsible to stop this person from hurting the next person. And so she definitely felt that pressure. And so she, even though she felt a little

bit guilty for putting him on that sex offender list indirectly, she didn't put him on the sex offender list. He did that himself, but you know what I mean? Um, she, she just knew that she had to keep this fight going because he could hurt someone else. So Nick continued to fight this conviction for six years and he endlessly harassed her as victim. He- Wow. I mean, I'm not surprised so far. I know, right?

He posted photos of her and her child online. This is like years later. He doxed her. He posted her address, her phone number. He posted lies about her. He was trying to like, he posted her address, her phone number, he posted lies about her, he was trying to like spread rumors about her. He even took MySpace posts from her page and then Photoshopped them and like made it look like,

well, he didn't make it look like because they were terribly done, but he tried to make it look like she had drunkenly confessed on her MySpace page that Nick had never really assaulted her and then he tried to make it look like she had drunkenly confessed on her MySpace page that Nick had never really assaulted her. And then he tried to prove that he tried to give that to detectives. And they were like, this is Photoshop. Is this not like he?

Yeah, I was gonna say, like, can you not just see where someone's literally took a screenshot? Right. You can go on her page and he's like, no, she deleted it. And it's like, no, you made this up. Every time I log into my Facebook, it says you are accessing this from a different location. And I'm like, I don't know how that's true, but if it says it to me every single time,

it must say it somewhere else. And it's trying to hack into your account. Yeah, so he's like taking fake Facebook, MySpace posts and making shit up, posting pictures of her and her child online to like, dox her. It's just really effed up. And he then, because these Photoshopped images were so badly done, they were thrown out immediately. That's one of the reasons, by the way, do we know as an adult that he had a narcissistic

personality disorder? We do not. We do not know. Okay. I'm just going to go off of just the pure classic criminal confidence of like, I love that he thinks that, well, these are good enough for me to believe if I were a cop, if I were an idiot cop, it would work. Why do you think you're smarter than everyone?

Yeah, it's almost like, a photo shot genius. There's like this weird unearned confidence that just happens in some of these people. I don't either and because they were thrown out, he was so pissed that he sued her for libel. Yeah, again, like, oh, how were you the victim in this? But okay.

Basically all in all, he made it as difficult as possible for her to move on, like psychologically from this attack. And turns out she wasn't alone because in 2008, a woman got together with Nick in Utah after they met on MySpace of all things. And they dated briefly during which he borrowed money that he never repaid her. And being in debt to her made him really angry.

And she reported that he became very rough with her during sex, so she broke up with him. On September 13, 2008, he told her, hey, can we meet up? I have the money I owe you. She said Nick met up with her. She thought he was going to repay her. Instead, he raped her. And he told her that it was her fault.

He was mentally unstable. That's so circular, because I'm like, that's the most unstable thing I've ever heard. And he would be like, well, yeah, well, it's her fault. And I'm like, wait a minute. Afterward, Nick wouldn't let her leave his home. Wouldn't leave? Oh my god.

So now he's holding her hostage in her own home. After raping her. And at a certain point, she's trapped there. He gets distracted by a text message. She fucking runs and bolts out the house. And she goes to a hospital to seek help and they collect DNA from a rape kit. However, it wasn't processed until 2018, a decade after the attack. Oh my God.

A decade. A decade. Backlog. So in 2017, the state tested this DNA along with DNA from other rape kits which had been neglected for years, and a year later it was finally analyzed and identified as a match to the DNA evidence from that Dayton rape at the Sinclair Community College, and it was Nick's DNA on both. So now Nick faced rape charges in two states, but investigators were closing in on him for yet

another crime. This time the FBI was involved because they are after Nick for fraud. Sharon Lane of Ohio, who was one of Nick's former foster parents, accused him of opening more than 22 credit lines in her husband's name after he had left the house. According to the complaint, Nick had racked up nearly $200,000 of debt under the couple's name. He also owed his second ex-wife, Catherine, over $50,000 on an outstanding loan. So investigators began putting together Nick's story. And it's all over the place, as you can imagine.

Like rape case in Dayton, rape case in Utah, this fraud over here, this bizarre political figure over here in Rhode Island. Like it's just all over the place. Right, but it's not his fault that he's on Pantene, you know what, you're onto something there. You're a good lawyer. Come on.

Onto something, I know it, for is true. You know what? You're onto something there. You're a good lawyer. Come on. I'm onto something. I know it for a fact. So Catherine, who is a fucking hero, the second ex-wife, secretly recorded Nick's abuse against her. It's very scary. It's very scary to listen to her. Just incredibly powerhouse move, very brave.

She used that as evidence to seek protection from him. And when she finally did end things and walk out of the house, she got into her car, but Nick got into his car and began chasing her down the road. And she actually ended up crashing her car because of, because the escape was so intense and terrifying. And he ended up driving away to avoid the police. So this is like how unstable this guy is and how violent and aggressive. So the Utah County attorney reported they had amassed reports from four separate states involving criminal cases of sexual assault, harassment,

and possible kidnapping from 2007 through 2019 that Nicholas Oliverdian had committed. So Utah County Attorney, when they're putting together the case of the woman that he had raped and held in his house, they were going through and collecting evidence and they reported that they had amassed reports from four separate states involving criminal cases

of sexual assault, harassment, and possible kidnapping from 2007 through 2019. So it's almost like Utah finally was able to say like, hey, wait a minute, we have all these things, they're all under, they're all the same guy. According to reports, he had a history of cornering women where he would threaten suicide if they didn't give into his demands or he would, quote, force a non-consensual sexual encounter. Holy shit. So Nick moved back to Dayton, Ohio, where he started a nonprofit. Wow.

And his nonprofit was an attempt to revitalize downtown Dayton. And in fact, according to his former wife, Nick used the organization to steal from high school and college students. So this was a front. I mean, not only a front, but I think, I would not be surprised if when he first started it, it was because he had, quote, whatever this means, good intentions, because he thought that that would almost excuse his,

yeah, but like also that's like, that's the wild part about this confidence is like, oh, after all of these charges or all these accusations against me, which are true, I'm assuming, like I can also just head up into like the public sphere and everyone can look at me and nothing will happen and I won't even get caught like that's crazy. I would be if if I had that many accusations against me whether or not they were true.

The last thing I would do is show my face to the public ever again, you know, and start more bullshit. Like that's that's like his confidence growing of like I got got away with small town stuff. I got to get big. I got to lose my steam. And I think sometimes it's that attitude is the reason that they're successful. Because people like us are like, well, you would never do that, you know? And it's like, if somebody is so bold and brazen, you're like, well, they must know something. I don't know. You know, I feel like there's just an element of like being so brazen that people just kind of believe you. Why? Yeah. Yes.

I think they're just not afraid of risk, like a logical person would be. They're just like, they're like, in fact, I crave risk and I chase risk and I'll do it wherever, even if it's at the detriment to me and my family. And even if I'm gonna get busted and go to jail. And so that's exactly what happened. He starts this nonprofit to revitalize Dayton,

when in reality, and this according to his former wife, he is stealing from high school and college students, and this is how he did it. He would mail out applications for college scholarships, which required 20 to $40 application fees. Then he would take the fees and then just throw away their application. Like there was no scholarship.

It's giving like creed from the office when he collects money for that woman that got fired. And then he just like, he pulls it all out of the get well soon card and throws the card in the trash and pockets all the money. Exactly, that's exactly it. It's like so brazen and so ridiculous that like you can't believe someone's doing this.

As part of a, like he legitimately founded a nonprofit. It's not like he's walking down the street like here want to fill this out and give me $20 like he's genuinely mailing this shit out under the name of a non-profit and he's getting these 20 to $40 application fees and just pocketing them which scares me too because if he's capable of it there's nobody he's the only person who opened up a nonprofit who does this. Definitely not. That's why we have websites like Charity Navigator. Yeah. But it freaks me out, though, how simply it was done.

I'm just like, I would like you to at least have to go through a few hoops before you're just ripping people off. And made his way back to Rhode Island, where he continued his advocacy work and political career. OK. Political career. I mean, that's like.

But by the time investigators were catching up to Nick for his crimes, he no longer lived in the United States. Now, it's almost as if he had to dash. It almost had to dash right on over to a new country. He claimed that speaking out against the state as a teenager and young adult had made him powerful enemies who had threatened to kill and silence him. Okay. Relax.

Okay. Okay. I feel like half of our listeners went. The collective? Okay. I'm sure. Where else is this going? We're all shaking in our boots.

He fled the US to live in Ireland for the sake of his own safety. And then he began contacting people back in the US to tell them the tragic news that he was dying of cancer. Oh, how convenient. Maybe he was. I don't know. But how convenient. He wasn't.

He wasn't. Okay. How convenient. What Nick didn't know was that many of the people he had contacted had already been informed by the FBI that he was being looked into as a fugitive. So the people who were at first devastated about this cancer diagnosis are now learning, wait a minute, this guy is actually a con artist and we don't even think he's sick at all.

So in 2020, when he died, investigators contacted Interpol to try and find confirmation of his death and nobody could provide any sort of death certificate. So do you remember that mass that Nick's alleged widow had planned to host for his memorial mass with all these like, and they were gonna do this big, the big one, because he's so special. Super big one, because he was such a good person.

So they contacted this Catholic church, where Nick's alleged widow, Louise, had planned to host this event. And they told the priest that Nick is not dead, please cancel the mass that you have planned. Ha ha ha ha ha! Ha ha ha ha ha! What a fun, like what's the walkie talkie code for that?

It's just like. 86th of funeral. 86th of funeral. We've got a dead man walking, 86th of funeral. 10-2, 10-2, okay. So they told the priest, Nick is not dead, cancel the mass. However, it turns out Louise had contacted

multiple churches to host multiple memorial masses in mixed honor. And the authorities contacted each church to say, we've got a dead Van Wage 86th funeral. Tend to, tend to. Tend to, tend to. Well, that's, I mean, that's why you need a phone tree. You need one person to call, and then that person calls, and then that person calls, and you just all rely on each other. Yeah, mine did too, but that was- My school had a phone tree.

The 90s and 2000s. That was the 90s, yeah. It's such a fun idea. But I loved a phone tree, I thought it was so useful. And also everyone, everyone had to unify. You really had to rely on each other. I remember the people who were supposed to call me was the Benez house, and they were supposed to call me was the Benez house.

And they were supposed to call if there was a snow day. And when it started snowing, I'd be like, have the Benez's called yet? Have they called yet? Have they called yet? Dial the phone. Oh, I would do the classic inside out PJs and flush the toilet.

People who are not from the states are probably like, what? Every child has their own weird weather traditions. There's no way they don't. Which I will say, you know who I learned that from? The most Christian families that went to the school with me. And tell me if that's not a manifesting ritual, where you're trying to control the weather. That's literally the Weather Witches.

Episode one, Arch witches. Episode one. Rituals. Oh man. Okay, so when Louise, the wife, hears that these masses are getting mass canceled, she starts sending enraged emails to the priests, which I feel like is probably against God's rules or something. Some people who knew Nick read the emails and went, that's Nick writing this. Guys,

this is Nick. Who's writing the cancel the church, cancel the mass? When Louise, his quote unquote wife, finds out that the FBI has told all these churches to 86 the masses, she's pissed. And she starts sending emails to the priest saying, how dare you cancel this honor, this mass in honor of my dead husband. Oh, I see. He's canceling his own funeral.

No, no, no. The investigators are canceling the masses because they know he's not dead. And so his wife who organized all the masses, Louise, hears that the churches are like, hey, we're canceling these masses. We heard from detectives, they want us to cancel the mass. And she's pissed. She's like, you're canceling my dead husband's memorial service? How dare you? Does that make sense? Yes.

No. Okay. So the wife Louise is pissed off that all these memorials, she had planned all these nice memorials for her dead husband. And now they're all being canceled. She finds out. When Louise's emails get in the hands of some people who knew Nick while he was alive,

they're reading these emails going, wait a minute, who's Louise? This is not, there's no Louise. Spoiler alert, there's no Louise. It's all Nick. He is calling all these churches and saying, I want my dead husband to have these beautiful services. And yeah.

I mean, ultimate, ultimate, like this cockiness of like calling funerals to be like, why aren't you throwing these lavish parties to celebrate me? Wow, the balls. I don't understand. That's the meanest thing you could ever do. These enraged emails are going to priests from Louise,

the widow of Nick Oliverian. And everyone's like, that's not the widow of Nick Oliverian. We're pretty sure that's Nick Oliverian. So yeah. And we can only extrapolate from there that he's probably the one who emailed in the first place to ask for all these high flying politicians to speak at his own funeral. That's crazy.

How would you know if one of your friends was actually writing emails? I mean, if it were Eva, it would start with Eek immediately. If it said Eek, I'd eck, someone stole Eva's phone. Not, not Eva. Yeah. That's a great way, that's another good question. How would you know if my phone was texting you, but you knew it wasn't me?

You'd, hmm. I, hmm. Hmm, how would you know? Would the ruse be, would it go on for a long time? You'd be too, if you were too nice and like, that sounds bad, but like too, too like bubbly, I'd be like, what is wrong with you? We don't talk like that.

Like we're very like, we're like short, like, or if I use punctuation. Concise when we, not concise, like we talk a lot, right? But like, you wouldn't be like, Oh, how are you doing? You know, like the pleasantries, we don't do pleasantries. It's just like, yeah. We don't have conversations. We really do save all of our conversations for the podcast. It's like really just like ranting, but there's not like the usual like, how's your day going? You know? We just we don't ask each other for updates. We just update each other. I would know if you if someone stole your phone. If you were using that. Oh my god. That

emoji. I hate that emoji. Yes, that's 100%. I love that emoji. I fucking everyone loves that emoji. And if all the texts were coming in in Papyrus, I would know too. Other than that, if all the text message fonts were coming in in Papyrus. Comic Sans, Papyrus, it would have to be for sure a Helvetica, otherwise it is someone else on the line.

One of the things I went to, that I did this week with my mom is I took her on a boat, and we were going through this marina. We were looking at all the other boats and seeing like the names that people pick for their boat. Someone literally, the boat's name was yachts of fun. It was like lots of fun. And it was spelled in papyrus.

And I was like, I can't tell if this is great or horrible. It's both. I think it should be yachts of fun in curls MT. Then you're almost like leaning into it, you know, what's our boats name? And that's why we sink. We're so good. We're in sync.

You and me, we're like this, we're like this, we're like this. That's how I know. That's how I know you're not texting me. Anyway, that's how we would know if someone, if all of a sudden we weren't connected. Everyone who ever listens to the podcast is like, we all know that dumbass.

You know what, I saw three boats with the name Boat. Are you serious? They just, which like, it was funny the first time and after three times it's like, oh overused overdone make everyone else change it Yeah, that's yeah, good. It's like oh, what's your boss? Well now it's not funny, okay, so Okay, he got found out it is his he is his nobody knows But they're the friends are saying the people who Nick are like, this is getting fishy, right?

So investigators file a warrant for Nick's arrest, but they seal it because they don't want Nick to see it online. Like they don't want him to be getting Google alerts and discover that he's still wanted, you know. He wants, they want him to think that they believe he's really dead. Right, because you got to play the game to catch him in the act. So those who knew Nick felt that his obituary and reports of his death, which memorialized him, all read as if he had written them about himself. I scratched out, he was amazing. What a good friend to all.

There were also attempted edits to Wikipedia articles about him that appeared to have... WikiFeet? He updated his WikiFeet to excellent from OK. Where's WikiFeet updated? I wish I could do that. That's how I'll know you're dead because you're faking your death. There were attempted edits to Wikipedia articles about Nick that appeared to come from accounts that had belonged to him while he was alive. And one edit of this Wikipedia page swapped out a real photo of him with a

different one that was harder to see his face so that you like, couldn't recognize him in public. Like he was almost trying to change his own footprint on the internet so he could hide better. Oh, smart guy. Okay. Right? I know. Outraged by these rumors, this woman who identified herself as his wife wrote to the Providence

Rhode Island newspaper, the Providence Journal, quote, unless my husband was cloned and died in my arms and faked a cancer diagnosis, treatment and heart disease slash heart attacks for months before that, he passed away in my arms. However, she refused to provide a death certificate to the paper to prove his death. Or any, yeah, okay. Anything.

Investigators agreed with Nick's acquaintances that many emails that were sent after Nick's death actually came from Nick, but he kept hiding his IP address. So it was really hard to track him down. That is until December, 2021, when Scottish authorities believed they discovered Nick in the hospital. So I guess you are sort of onto it with the finding him out through COVID. That's because he had several large and distinct tattoos that made him immediately recognizable. And weirdly enough, the tattoos matched those of a man in a coma in the hospital in Glasgow. And this man, of of course was Arthur Knight,

who woke from this coma and said, I'm appalled, I've never even been to the United States. Was he saying it in an American accent? You should hear his accent. It's bonkers, yeah, it's bonkers. Oh no. So his wife Miranda welcomed reporters into their home in Glasgow in order to tell

Arthur's story and defend him against the authorities' accusations. And turns out Arthur and Miranda, who knows where Louise went, but Arthur and Miranda, is this not like so nuts? Like what happened to Louise? I don't know. I would love an article that says Louise on the loose. Loose Louise. Just, I don't know. I feel like find her. She's the 86ter.

She's off the grid. So Arthur and Miranda had married in 2020 when Nicholas was diagnosed with cancer and died right afterwards, allegedly. After waiting months by Arthur's side while he was in this medically induced coma, battling COVID-19, Miranda could not believe these accusations against her husband. But of course, this evidence is starting to stack up. There's the tattoos, the mugshots, his own fingerprints, which happened to match Nick's fingerprints.

What are the odds? Like, come on. So reporters covering the case also began to suspect for obvious reasons that Miranda was kind of in on this whole thing and that she had been posing as Louise or at least helping in the ruse to plan these memorial masses because it's the only thing that kind of made sense as to like while he was in the hospital who was involved and why else would she be covering for him? Yeah, both of him to need like a co-conspirator. I know, I thought that was odd too.

I feel like when you're that cocky and you've rode that close to the, flown that close to the sun, you would be too stubborn to think, oh I need an accomplice in know, especially a woman, you know, when you're......an accomplice in this. ...when you have so many... Oh, especially when women make you mentally unstable. Exactly. So ultimately, a Scottish judge ruled that Arthur Knight was indeed Nicholas Oliverdian, and Nick slash Arthur claimed that the extremely distinctive tattoos... This was his excuse, or his explanation.

He said... He said someone tattooed those onto him while he was in a coma. I was just asleep. I don't know what to tell you. He claims were tattooed on him while he was in a coma to frame him. This random old man. It's just so weird.

Of course the court doesn't buy it. What a... And thus began a months long court battle to have Nick extradited to Utah, who's still waiting for him over there, during which time he tried to appeal based on mistaken identity, claims that he was suffering from mental illness

that would make it really cruel for them to extradite him. And the Scottish court system determined all of his claims were false and said, moreover, there was little, if any, evidence to suggest that on the hypothesis, the appellant does indeed have such a condition that treatment would be unavailable in Utah. So basically, if you are this unstable and you have all these issues, fine, then Utah will help you. We're still still gonna ship you out of here. So four years after faking his own death, Nicholas Oliverian was extradited to the United States

just months ago in January, 2024. His plane landed in Utah where he immediately faced charges for two rapes and another sexual battery accusation, all of which happened in 08. And as of March of this year, 2024, court proceedings were stalled because Nick had yet to come to a financial deal with his lawyer, who was waiting for communication from Nick's wife, who was still in the UK. So there are a lot of like, delays happening. And the judge acknowledged Nick's legal right

to chosen defense counsel. So further legal proceedings were delayed until Nick could secure the lawyer that he wanted, the specific lawyer he wanted. Now, when news first broke about an American man masquerading as this Irish English academic named Arthur Knight in Scotland, people at first thought it was funny, right? What a ridiculous story.

Because at the time it was almost like a catch me if you can, like there were just fraud allegations. But then when the rape and assault allegations came out, people were like, it's not funny anymore, right? Yeah. So as of May of this year, as in a few weeks ago, Nick decided to represent himself in court. Now, if that's not the cherry on top of this

fucking bullshit, I mean. Hey, hey, here's the most obvious way that this ends. How did we think it would go just like that? Honestly, I mean, like what, he, it baffles me how many Stupid men there we shouldn't be shocked anymore and yet it's still shocking. That's shocking It every day. I'm like, I think I finally met the last of them. Oh, nevermind. There's always a new one. I'm like

it's just the the uber. And like, do they, I want to know so badly, do they know that their confidence is blinding them and they just don't care? Or do they just say, well, this is how I'm supposed to? He gave a statement about it. So he did say, I don't get it. Quote, it's not ideal, but it is what's necessary. And the judge responded, quote, it's not what's necessary. And the judge was the judge responded, because quote, it's not what's necessary.

All you need to do is ask for a lawyer today and I can appoint one to represent you. Yes. Nick refused. So like, what the fuck to know? Like, I just don't understand. Just just that cocky pride, stubborn, arrogant insert word here. just don't, I don't live in that world. It's so foreign to me how someone can just- To help on your behalf and talk for you. I'd be like, yes, in every aspect of my life, but especially in a criminal case. That's what I'm saying, like especially in a pickle.

Like there's no way I would ever think, no, I'm good enough to not need somebody to look out for me. Take a look up down. I don't know. And even if I was, I mean, the cockiness is what started it all and what ended it all. And it's always such a full circle. And you would think at some point you would look within

and be like, oh, hey, maybe I was an arrogant prick earlier and my way out is to stop. No. The finding factor. Like there's just a, like a, there's not a care to look inward ever. It's just like, yeah, it's amazing. It just blows my mind every time.

So when warned that he might face five years to life in prison, especially if he represents himself, Nick said, that's a chance I'm willing to take your honor. So the risk is just they fucking eat it up. I told you they love the risk, that's it. So now, you know, I'm following this. We're hopefully all following this and we can only wait and see the outcome

for Nicholas Oliverdian, AKA Rossi, AKA Arthur Knight. But yeah, if you guys watch the, you should watch the Dateline episode because they actually did an interview with him and she asks to, when he's pretending to be Arthur Knight and she asks to see, it was Andrea Canning on Dateline and she asked to see his tattoos and he like refuses to show them. But of course in the interview, the whole time he's wearing a mask, like a COVID mask, even though it's like digital, because he doesn't want to show his face, right? So he's like, and he's doing this fake accent.

It's out of control. Like she called it the most absurd, I think not absurd. She called it like the most outrageous interview. She was like, like my craziest interview I ever did like with this guy pretending to be this Scottish intellectual. And it's like, this is gonna go down in history as like my craziest interview I ever did. Like with this guy pretending to be this Scottish intellectual. And it's like, no, you're just a rapist from the United States. Like get a grip. Anyway. Oh my God. And to claim that they tattooed him in a coma.

Like what a wild fucking. Again, it's like, are you so confident you can get away with it? Or do you just think everyone's so stupid that they would fall for it? Or like. I must be both. I'm just, or like, cause I, if I said that,

if I said that, I would be knowing full stop. I am lying through my teeth. I'm praying to God someone believes me and doesn't question me any further. I feel like he really thought like this idiot's going to obviously think that's real enough. That's good enough. Cause my idea is always the smartest thing that comes out of your head. It's insane. Oh my God. Wow. So as I said in the dateline, like behind the scenes that I listened to as well. At least no one died except for Nicholas Alverdian, allegedly, and then came back to life. So, you know, at least for once I have a crime story that's,

you know, they called it a mysterious death in the like log line because she was like, well, we couldn't say a death because nobody really died, but it was a mysterious death because it was a fake death. Anyway, so I've been wanting to cover that for a while. So that's the story. Talk about a modern day. That's a great puzzle. A puzzler. That's great. That was great.

A thinker. You know, a thinker, a stumper. A mm hmm. Wow. A temple tapper. I've never heard that before. I made it up just now. Oh, it's really good. I like it.

We'll bring it back. Okay, a temple tapper. I love it. Ah, okay, fine. Well, well done. I loved that story. I did too. We did good.

I know this is a long episode, but I loved our stories today. We're so good at this. We're so good at our jobs. It's crazy. We're literally that so good. Oh my god, we should host a podcast. Okay, maybe we need to, speaking of 86, maybe.

Oh, I was like hello. 86 the attitude on my end because I feel like I'm very quickly turning, because I feel like I'm teetering. We just spent the whole time talking about how confident and how this guy is and all of a sudden I'm like, we're so good at our jobs. We literally are the smartest, best people and everyone else is an idiot. It's crazy.

Yeah, this is where my therapist would say we need to enter the humble zone. So, um, is that what you do? Humble, humble, humble, humble, humble. Okay. No, I just, I don't know. I'm feeling, I don't know, feeling silly.

Did you enjoy that or? I don't wanna know. Don't tell me. Okay, so what are you doing here? So my sister-in-law is here actually downstairs. So I gotta go see her. Well, my brother-in-law's partner, Emily, is here. So, and she's in town.

She's from Cincinnati, but she's in town for her cousin's wedding. So she's stopped by to see Leona. Probably not me, but I'm gonna. And Blaze, I literally told her way to see Blaze's face. She's like, why? And I was like, you'll see. I'm excited to see Blaze's face.

I feel, I, with love, I need to see how wild his face is. It's not as scary looking as I thought. Like I thought it would look way worse. It's just like almost like this dark patch where you can, just knowing it's broken really freaks me out, you know? Oh yeah, it freaks me out especially the eating part cause I feel like my jawbone.

Oh my God. I just think of all of that moving around. That's what I'm saying. That's why when he wears that sleep mask I'm like, please be fucking careful. Anyway. Yeah. So I'm going to do that. Are you up to anything?

Oh, that poor man. I think we've been productive enough, quite frankly. I am. I give you permission and you permission to do nothing else today besides just chill. Yay, if you would like, you can hop over to Patreon and here is Babylon even longer. If you would like to read a book in September,

one is coming out called A Haunted Road Atlas, next up. We're doing a talk shop live on the 22nd of June, or of June, not January. And if you want to come see us on tour, you can too. We've got tickets. So thank you everyone. And that's why we drink.