Chilluminati Podcast - Episode 322: Stories From Beyond The Veil

Starting point is 00:00:20 Hello, everybody, and welcome back to the Chulamini podcast. Episode 32, as always, I'm your host. Mike Byrne joined by none other than the, on the usual, what is Jesse? Jesse, the master of cunnelingus himself, Jesse Cox. The master of cunnelingus. And his compatriot. That's goddamn right. I'm not sure why, though, but thank you.

Starting point is 00:00:40 He's the master of cuntylingus. Hold on. He's the master of cunnelingus and I'm his compatriot. Is that what you said? Yeah. Because there to cheer me on. I'm just like, yeah. You do it.

Starting point is 00:00:48 You do that. You do that shit, bro. Alex Cucciani or something, you know what I mean? Whoa. That better be a fucking comfy-ass chair. That's all I'm saying. Guys, welcome back to Chaluminati. Today, it's a little special.

Starting point is 00:01:05 Today, it is the first of November, which is the day after Halloween. And, you know, I wanted to give ourselves a chance to introduce ourselves in the normal and respectful way that we usually do. Just like today. and I wanted to give us a chance to say shoutouts to everybody who is seeing us tonight at the fucking Lincoln Hall in Chicago, which is pretty cool. Whati, whati, whati.

Starting point is 00:01:31 Assuming this comes out on the first. We scream. Every time I say, we go out on stage, we scream that. Every time I say the day of a thing that comes out, it doesn't come out on that day because that's the law of like my luck. Right. But hopefully you guys are hearing this on the same day as us. We're very happy to be there.

Starting point is 00:01:46 Patreon.com slash Chiluminati pod. This episode is called Stories from Beyond the Vale. This episode is in honor of this unearthly season of spirits and mysteries and includes a reading of a short pamphlet, the first ever mass-produced media released by the Chuluminati, first printed on November 1st, 1901, a long time ago. Almost 100. For a long time. A long time. An internal release providing entertainment and inspiration for the Halloween season. season featuring writings from the journal of Special Agent G.S. Fleming, who's a paranormal

Starting point is 00:02:24 investigator, adventurer, an actor who eventually went to work with Thomas Edison in New York City later that year. So today on the show, we are going to see read by our very own master of Connie Lingus himself, his compatriot, the cuck man, and just Mathis, the guy who lives in Texas. A nice man who lives in Texas. But Mathis. A nice, A nice thirsty man who lives in Texas, Mathis.

Starting point is 00:02:55 And we're going to read our way through the stories beyond the veil. But first, I'm going to read the introduction for Mr. Fleming. Fellow tailors of mystery and intrigue. My name is not important to your understanding of this tale. But for the sake of thoroughness and later discussion of this material, you may refer to me as George Fleming. By profession, I am a man of illusion and moving images,

Starting point is 00:03:21 recently of New York, and the soon-to-be-famous rooftop moving photography studios of one Thomas Alva Edison, which he keeps now on 21st Street. Here, in the years to follow, my true work begins. Seeds of inspiration will be sown, and a new century of ideas will spring forth from this newly-tilled earth,

Starting point is 00:03:39 providing wonders enough to last us at least into the next millennium. Even so, I realize this outcome is not necessarily guaranteed, and so this whole year previous I spent diligently preparing my mind and spirit for this noble journey of creation, filling countless notebooks with stories, cuttings, pressings, and sketches of unnatural things I've encountered upon this world in my travels, and which science at its sharpest edges might barely only begin to explain and which none alive can fully comprehend. The six stories, which I have selected here for inclusion in this volume, were chosen for their exceptional ability to capture the reader's imagination and impress upon them the sheer, unbelievable vastness of this dark ocean of new ideas swirling forth from the fraying boundaries of what we once thought was all there is to know. But if you were wondering why we waited to publish this until after Halloween itself,

Starting point is 00:04:38 that is because I have found through experience that in many corners of creation, instead of secularizing the season with gags, goofs, beer, and confections, an earnest attempt is still made at spiritual communion and connection. And in these attempts, something beautiful and rather unique can be gained, which I will attempt to share some sense of with you in these pages. And so, rather than let them scare you tonight as you read these six strange, but I assure you completely true stories, I invite you instead to let the fear slide away, and as the veil to this unknown place slowly opens to us and we can't help but peer inside, I invite you also to embrace what you find there with open arms.

Starting point is 00:05:25 For if you do, you may find, dear reader, that despite your misgivings, the unknown will embrace you back. Now, in the words of three witches, fair is foul, foul is fair, hover through the fog, and, filthy air. The first story, which will be read by Mathis, is called The Spirit Compact. In the early winter of 1894, I found myself at the front counter of a curiosity shop near Christchurch, Oxford. For about seven minutes, this fellow had been trying to convince me to purchase a young child's doll within which he said, he said he had sealed the spirit of a double murder using paper and paste, when in the back corner of a small shelf near the door between a wooden dove, and a wooden dove,

Starting point is 00:06:14 and a box of hair pins was a sealed letter which looked to be between 40 and 50 years old, a curious inconsistency which immediately drew my interest. Once the shopkeeper noticed I was looking at the letter, he forgot all about the doll, which he kept referring to as Harold, and began spinning for me the tale of one Mr. Kenneth R. H. McKenzie, a local eccentric, who had died almost 20 years ago and whose son had recently sold off a bunch of his father's belongings to recoup some of the cause. after a fire. I purchased the letter on the condition that he would leave an address for me in case

Starting point is 00:06:49 the young man ever returned to the shop. Just two days later, he did, and I invited him for tea after the local fashion, after the local fashion, which is really more like a young rich girl's picnic lunch here in New York City, delicious though it was. Mr. McKenzie's son told me that his father had never opened the letter as a matter of honor, and that it was sent to him by his good personal friend, the Reverend Theodore Eloise Buckley of London, just before his sad and unexpectedly sudden death at age 30 in early 1856. After I inquired as to its contents, the young man became restless and frustrated and was seemingly having difficulty explaining that it wasn't so much the letter itself as the circumstances in which he received it, which kept his father from

Starting point is 00:07:31 opening the blasted things for all those years. As it happens, something like six years earlier about the year 1850 or so, Mr. McKenzie and Mr. Buckley had been conversing over tea on the subject of ghosts and the nature of life and awareness beyond the veil of death. Apparently, after some discussion, they discovered a mutual curiosity for the topic, as on that day, as his son told it, his father and Mr. Buckley together entered into a sort of spirit compact, as one might say, in which they both agreed that whichever of them was first to die would expend every available effort to visit the survivor as soon as possible. as a spiritual apparition, and to be sure it was them that was visiting, they worked out a secret signal where the departed would lay their hand on the living friend's brow. And so, as I already mentioned, when it came to be that Mr. Buckley did indeed unexpectedly expire on the 30th of January 1856, it wasn't a week later on February 2nd that Mr. McKenzie's son said his father found himself lying in bed at half past 12 o'clock, staring without a thought

Starting point is 00:08:33 in his mind at the candle burning out. in hopes of finding his way quickly to sleep. When suddenly, as his breath had finally just slowed, he felt the touch of a cool, damp hand on his eye and forehead. And when he looked up, what did he see? But Mr. Buckley dressed just as he always was in his nice scholarly clothes with his portfolio tucked under his arm. Now, at this point in the story, some among you might protest.

Starting point is 00:08:57 But if you could see how deeply, even just the telling, disturbed Mr. McKenzie's son almost 50 years later, you might also believe it as fully as still as I still do today. And as for the letter indeed, Mr. Buckley appeared a second time some days later with an exact image of this very same letter in hand, which was already sitting on Mr. McKenzie's desk, but which he hadn't had the time to open before his untimely death. And for whatever reason, perhaps out of fear or as his son maintains out of respect for Mr. Buckley, it remains unopened now as it did then.

Starting point is 00:09:30 And I shortly returned it to the young man free of charge, having found the story rather affecting in my own personal way, which I'll not bore you readers with here. Also, I should add that, like all good members of this fine organization should do, I attempted to verify the story with corroborating information and discovered that there did indeed live a Theodore Aloe's Buckley in London, whose family in Paddington is well documented as full of composers and performers, and indeed he himself stayed close to the arts, teaching himself to read at the British Museum and attending Oxford as a servitor before becoming a writer-historian translator, drinker, and opium addict.

Starting point is 00:10:07 Releasing several fine works, including a well-known literal prose, translation of Homer's Iliad in 1851, and a book called The Great Cities of the Ancient World and Their Glory and Their Desolation in 1852, which was published in over seven different editions before 1900. He lived in Paddington until his death amongst a library of cheaply obtained books. New Charles Dickens well enough for Dickens to speak poorly of his work, and most importantly for our story, he did indeed die early of some sort of infectious disease in 1856.

Starting point is 00:10:38 I was also able to locate an 1873 version of the eighth volume of the spiritual magazine out of London. It mentions a story in a brief article on page 244, which reads that, quote, there are many instances on record of apparitions and manifestations by spirits to survivors and fulfillment of some agreement to that effect, end quote. I shall continue my research into this topic and write again if I discover more, but I will leave you from yet another quote from this edition's front cover as those boys down at Warwick Court knew just what they were doing when they wrote this beautifully succinct and surprisingly modern definition of spiritualism, which still rings true in 1901, in which you may believe in yourselves or simply ponder for what it's worth as a passing notion. Quote, spiritualism is based on the cardinal fact of spirit communion and influx. It is the effort to discover all truth relating to man's spiritual. nature, capacities, relations, duties, welfare, and destiny, and its application to regenerate life.

Starting point is 00:11:38 It recognizes a continuous divine inspiration in man. It aims through a careful reverent study of facts at a knowledge of the laws and principles which govern the occult forces of the universe, of the relations of the spirit to matter, and of man to God in the spiritual world. It is thus Catholic and progressive, leading to true religion as at one with the highest philosophy. Personally, I just think we all may be dreams in the first place. So there you go. That's the spirit compact. Where is that from? What? What is the story? Where's like, what is that story from? Yes. Yeah. Well, it really happened. So this, this is,

Starting point is 00:12:19 these are all real people. Here is a link if you want to see. This is the, an addition of the Iliad that's translated by Theodore Alois Buckley. Here's his other book, The Great Cities of the Ancient World and their glory and their desolation. You can take a look at. Here's a letter from Charles Dickens to Theodore Alois Buckley from Christmas 1852 in which he teases him and tells me better get his ass to a party with his wife. Here's a portrait of that man, Kenneth R.H. McKenzie, who was visited by Mr. Buckley and had

Starting point is 00:12:53 the hand placed on his brow. It's a portrait of him. And here is... What a dapper young man who... And here is something that I did not know until I started looking into this. Here is a picture of the 13th folio of the cipher manuscripts, which were used to found the order of the hermetic golden dawn,

Starting point is 00:13:10 or the hermetic order of the golden dawn, which were among, which he wrote. So he wrote the cipher manuscripts. He was one of the quote unquote translators of those Germanic occult scripts that they founded the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn upon. Had nothing to do with this story, but it's true. And yeah, this is just a story from antiquity that I looked into. Totally real story.

Starting point is 00:13:33 But yeah, George Fleming was the one who did all this investigating. So that's his story. But the second story from George Fleming is called The Mystic Flying Light. And Jesse's going to read this one for us now. Excellent. I was in San Francisco, California, and the United States of America, just a few years later in 1896, covering reports of strange phenomena occurring in a quarry tunnel

Starting point is 00:14:00 quite near the vast and humbling Sutro-Bath complex, which had only just been unveiled to the public earlier that year at Lands and Western City. I was enjoying its various saltwater pools and various artifacts it kept in its museum and even changing clothes in private, if you can believe it, when rather out of nowhere, within two or three days in mid-November, every newspaper in the city and likely many more across the country were quickly filled with stories of some sort of gigantic airship straight from the pages of fiction,

Starting point is 00:14:36 which thousands, if not tens of thousands of people, kept seeing in the skies over Sacramento, and which then spread as far north as Oakland and San Francisco. Obviously, after contacting my editors at headquarters using the telephone, I was permitted to change the focus of my piece and found an article from a few weeks earlier in the Detroit Free Press, claiming that there was an inventor

Starting point is 00:15:01 in New York building some sort of aerial torpedo boat. This alone wouldn't have seemed like a connection to me on its own, but for another article I found in the Sacramento B 16 days later, the same night as the first several hundred sightings, which possibly included a telegram from the same inventor, claiming that he and his two companions would shortly fly the machine from New York, California, and would arrive within two days. I myself never saw the craft, as on the night in question I was 150 feet under the earth,

Starting point is 00:15:40 commuting with the dead down a strange hole at Sutro Baths, but reports of the sighting were vivid and specific. with one journalist from the San Francisco call, writing that their ship was high in the heavens and appeared to be of huge size. When first seen, it seemed to be floating over San Leandro, Leandro. It moved rapidly, going at least 20 miles an hour. It shot across the skies in the northwest, then turned quickly and disappeared in the direction of Hayward. I was naturally rather fascinated with the notion and within days set to work cooperating eyewitness accounts. I met with Charles H. Ellis, who was an armorer at A&F in town, and confirmed his interview in the same paper, where he was quoted as saying,

Starting point is 00:16:36 I was going home to my dinner about half past five last night and was in the neighborhood of 12. 24th Street, New Broadway, when I saw a strange-looking thing in the sky. It was coming from the eastward, and at first I could see nothing but a bright light. When I first saw, the two lights appeared to be one. I thought it was a brilliant mature. It was getting dusk, but the sky was clouded and just dark enough to prevent anyone to see plainly. this guy was sufficiently dark to make a background which would render any such object visible. Oh, he's still talking, I guess.

Starting point is 00:17:22 He's still going. As it came, my poor voice, as it came nearer, and I could see that there was some dark object along with the light. When it was nearly overhead, I could clearly distinguish that it was somewhat resembled a balloon traveling and on with the bright light ahead. another one beneath it, and with what appeared to be wings, both before and behind the light. It was a great height above the earth, probably a thousand feet, but not so high as to make it impossible to distinguish what it was. I did not want to believe that it was an airship, as I had regarded the previous report of one in the light of a joke. This time, however, I had no alternative. I had to believe what I saw. As soon as it passed over St. Mary's College, it appeared to descend gradually, but regularly, as though under perfect control, and it disappeared in the direction of San Francisco.

Starting point is 00:18:24 Of course, it was too dark, and machine was too far away to distinguish anything like people or hear any sounds such as were heard in Sacramento. But there is no doubt in my mind that it was an airship supplied with electric lights and well manned. The article also mentioned a streetcar operator named Selby Yost, who I met several days later in Piedmont. And he confirmed the story he told in the call, adding that he was a tad behind schedule that night, but had to stop in the street when a little boy got in his way, whose attention was fully captured by something he was pointing at in the sky. Yost was quoted saying, when I looked ahead, I was mystified, and I may as well confess I was. I didn't like to admit myself that I'd suddenly gone crazy, but really for a moment,

Starting point is 00:19:22 I did wonder if my senses had deserted me. The passengers all reached out to look overhead and those inside wanted to see what those outside were gazing at. So when they requested me to stop the car, that they'd, They might all look I was practically forced to oblige them. They got out and rode and looked up at the airship, the most surprise crowd I ever saw in my life. There was, sure enough, right overhead, and traveling on a good rate with its light blazing

Starting point is 00:19:55 away, and the most uncanny-looking thing I ever saw. Airship or anything else, it was the most remarkable-looking object, and I'm out of loss now to convince myself that I actually saw it. It was altogether a wonderful sight, and nobody could ever make me believe that I would ever see such a thing. It was perfectly clear, and not only I, but all the passengers saw it and watched it till it disappeared. I thought it must have landed across the bay, and I was somewhat surprised this morning

Starting point is 00:20:28 to see no mention was made in the papers. I really liked to have found that, have that thing found. so that I can satisfy myself on how it worked for a more interesting thing I've ever seen. Still, with no real lead since my investigation was slowing, and calling headquarters by phone was beginning to become rather costly to me personally. So before heading back to New York myself, most likely by train rather than airship, I followed one last lead to a man called George Collins, who had called the San Francisco Chronicle on the 22nd,

Starting point is 00:21:03 claiming the story of the airship was perfectly true, that there was at least a successful airship in existence, and that California will have the honor of bringing it before the world. I saw the machine one night last week. It was made of metal. It was, oh, hold on, this is the guy. He's here. Yeah, I'm ready. We just came in. He's claiming the story was, perfectly true that there was at least a successful airship, existence, and that California will have the honor of bringing it before the world. I saw the machine one night last week. It was made of metal.

Starting point is 00:21:44 It is about 150 feet long and was built to carry 15 persons. It was built on the airplane system, and has two canvas wings 18 feet wide, and a rubber shaped like a rudder, even not rubber, a rudder shaped like a bird's tail. The inventor climbed into the man. machine, and after he had been moving some of the machinery for a moment, I saw the thing begin to ascend from the earth. The wings flap slowly as it rose, and then faster as it began to move against the wind. The machine was under perfect control the whole time. The inventor found, during his trial trip, that his ship had a wave-like motion that made him seasick. It was this defect

Starting point is 00:22:30 that he's now trying to remedy. In another six days, it is his intention to give people of San Francisco a chance to see his machine. He will fly right over the whole city across Market Street. Sid from Final Fantasy 2, everyone. Hey.

Starting point is 00:22:46 I met him myself the next day, and after I began asking questions about the man, he identified as the inventor, a non-practicing dentist named E.H. Benjamin, called Dr. E.H. Benjamin and why all his previous inventions were just simple dental implements, he quickly soured on our conversation and had, by the end of the week, gone to San Francisco Bulletin with a new story. He told him, I never saw the airship and I don't know anything about it. It is true that a man of standing in the community came to me asking me to get out a patent on the airship machine.

Starting point is 00:23:24 I expect him today or tomorrow with the model. The description he gave me of the airship was very incomplete. It gave me no idea the nature of the machine or how it operates. I really don't think my client's invention has anything to do with these mysterious appearances. At this point, sort of an impasse. I ended my story and promptly found my way home, but as time went on, as an avid reader of the news, I couldn't help but notice that with or without me, the story had developed slightly further. By February, airship sightings again.

Starting point is 00:23:57 extended as far east as Illinois, Michigan, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, and Wisconsin. And while many matched accounts of what was described in California, others didn't. And disappointingly, countless others were revealed over time to have been a work of common hoaxers and spoofs, who were simply taking advantage of an exciting moment in the new global culture for a few empty laughs at the expense of the general public. In the year since, it has been suggested that not only could this have been a terrestrial airship, but perhaps some sort of machine of extraterrestrial origin, as well. Or perhaps, though less likely, for those brief moments we could see straight through our sky to the sky of another land,

Starting point is 00:24:41 where fairyland fantasies and stories of Jules Verne and H.G. Wells are bigger than mere visions of a world more wonderful and free of our own. and instead represent an attainable future for all. So that's the mystic, that's the mystic light, the flying mystic light or whatever it is in San Francisco. Whatever it is. This is UFOs before the idea of UFOs existed in the zeitgeist. To me, interesting because it feels the same before they had the like, like the cultural idea of the UFO, basically the same thing.

Starting point is 00:25:16 Look at this illustration of the airship from the San Francisco. column post November 29th, 1896. All the stuff's in the show notes, by the way, by name. Here's another illustration of the airship from the San Francisco Chronicle. Similar look. But then as the story says, right? And I love, like a little UFO nugget, but I love that it has like propellers on it. It literally looks like a Final Fantasy airship.

Starting point is 00:25:44 Dude, it does. So you know how he said the story like spread across the country? to like other places. So like in those places, it was mostly just people gassing up the idea. But you seen these ones, these kind of look like, I don't know,

Starting point is 00:25:58 chitty, chitty bang bang for the people listening. Hell yeah. It has like wings, right? It has like, it has like little propellers on it. It's small.

Starting point is 00:26:06 Has a horn that goes, look at where we get, look at where we get by the time we're at the Dallas morning news. Yo, let's go. Yeah, it is literally just final fantasy airship.

Starting point is 00:26:17 Literally the Final Fantasy 9 airship. Someone calls it. We got, we have to go take on the silver dragons, dude. Literally. It's the Titanic with like 40 propellers on top of it. Which like did this, is this it? Is this what invented that? Is this?

Starting point is 00:26:31 Yeah, I'm sure there's got to be like, this got to be influenced from that. But also it's probably not the most unique idea of like slapping propellers on an existing vehicle. Right. And a lot of this stuff is also that stuff, you know, what, you know what yellow journalism is? Yeah. Where you like kind of like, just kind of write whatever. Budget.

Starting point is 00:26:49 Yeah. Yeah. I feel like there's a lot of yes-ending going on between newspapers, but just because I wanted to, here is a clip that I found left in with this pamphlet of Dennis Elmer Hopkins Benjamin listed on the 1900 census in San Francisco. He's about two-thirds of the way down on the left side, and he is a real person,

Starting point is 00:27:11 and he lived in San Francisco and was there at this time. So damn, right? Damn. This next story is called the melancholy Mr. Lincoln and Mathis is going to read it for us today. I got you. I'm not going to do silly voices like Jesse

Starting point is 00:27:25 because I don't want to get trapped for the best. Let's be honest. It's a trap. You'll be able to talk when we're done. Yeah, these are not like super short, so you know, wear your voice out. All right, here we go.

Starting point is 00:27:35 This past September at last marked the final burial of the late president of the United States, the nearly mythological Abraham Lincoln, who after several bits of unsavory business involving the attempted theft of his corpse has finally been laid to rest. I'll admit to being at times a bit sentimental about such things as decades old American history.

Starting point is 00:27:54 And so naturally, I lately found my way into a book shop searching for something to read as a way of honoring and being closer to the man. When I came upon a book called Recollections of Abraham Lincoln, which was published five or six years ago and was written by Lincoln's old law partner and bodyguard Ward Hill Lehmon. It's actually lemon weirdly. Is lemon? Okay. It's spelled layman, but it's lemon. Lemon. All right. Ward Hill Lemon, who had been sent away by Lincoln to Richmond, Virginia on the night of his death at Forge's Theater in the Capitol, and so was not able to protect him and who only recently passed away himself in 1893. The book had been compiled, I discovered, by Ward's daughter, Dorothy Tiliard, who told me that she herself had the honor of meeting Mr. Lincoln when she was but six years old.

Starting point is 00:28:41 According to Dorothy, who met me at Ebbett House in D.C. that same month, her father was one of only maybe two or three years. people who heard the president tell the story I found in this book, but luckily her father had taken notes almost immediately after he told it, so we have something rather close to his actual words that day. For those of you who may not be familiar with this tale, I feel it's only appropriate to present it in its original form. Quote, the president was in a melancholy meditative mood and had been silent for some time. Mrs. Lincoln, who was present, rallied him on his solemn visage and want of spirit.

Starting point is 00:29:15 This seemed to arouse him, and without seeming to notice her, Sally, he said, in slow and measured tones, it seems strange how much there is in the Bible about dreams. There are, I think, some 16 chapters in the Old Testament and four or five in the new, which dreams are mentioned, and there are many other passages scattered throughout the book which refer to visions. If we believe the Bible, we must accept the fact that in the old days, God and his angels came to men in their sleep and made themselves known in dreams. Nowadays, dreams are regarded as very foolish and are seldom told except by old women and by young men and maidens in love. Pretty wild observation from fucking Abraham Lincoln, by the way, just saying. Yeah, yeah, I agree.

Starting point is 00:30:00 And it is interesting. I mean, I think, like, on a grander scale, too, it is interesting on, like, if you do believe, like, the Bible wholesale, how many things you have to just believe truly exist, like, demons possessing people and stuff. Mrs. Lincoln then went marked when we'll go back into it. Why, you look dreadfully solemn. Do you believe in dreams? I can't say that I do, return Mr. Lincoln. But I had won the other night, which has haunted me ever since. After it occurred, the first time I opened the Bible, strange as it may appear, it was

Starting point is 00:30:30 the 28th chapter of Genesis, which related to, which related the wonderful dream Jacob had. I turned to other passages and seemed to encounter a dream or a vision wherever I looked. I kept on turning the leaves of the old book, and everywhere my eye fell upon passages, recording matters strangely in keeping with my own thoughts, supernatural visitations, dreams, visions, etc. He now looked so serious and disturbed that Mrs. Lincoln exclaimed, You frighten me. What is the matter? I am afraid, said Mr. Lincoln, observing they affect his words had upon his wife, that I have done wrong to mention the subject at all, but somehow the thing has got possession of me.

Starting point is 00:31:08 And like Banquo's ghost will not, it will not down. Bankwo, is I you say that? Like Bankwo's from Hamlet. Yeah. Okay, Bankwo's ghost. Okay. Been a long time since I've read Hamlet. This only inflamed Mrs. Lincoln's curiosity more.

Starting point is 00:31:21 And while bravely disclaiming any belief in dreams, she strongly urged him to tell the dream which seemed to have such a hold upon him being seconded in this by another listener. Mr. Lincoln hesitated, but at length commenced very deliberately his brow overcasts with a shade of melancholy. about 10 days ago, he said. I retired very late. I had been up waiting for important dispatches from the front. I could not have been long in bed when I fell into a slumber, for I was weary.

Starting point is 00:31:47 I soon began to dream. There seemed to be a death-like stillness about me. Then I heard subdued sobs as if a number of people were weeping. I thought I left my bed and wandered downstairs. There the silence was broken by the same pitiful sobbing, but the mourners were invisible. I went from room to room, no living purses. person was in sight. But the same mournful sounds of distress met me as I passed along. It was light in all the rooms. Every object was familiar to me. But where were all the people

Starting point is 00:32:16 who were grieving as if their hearts would break? I was puzzled and alarmed. What could be the meaning of all this? Determined to find the cause of a state of things so mysterious and so shocking, I kept on until I arrived at the East Room, which I entered. There I met with a sickening surprise. Before me was a cat, oh God, catafalque, catafalic. That's what I got to believe it is. Catafal, on which I arrested a corpse wrapped in funeral vestments. Around it were stationed soldiers

Starting point is 00:32:44 who were acting as guards, and there was a throng of people, some gazing mournfully upon the corpse, whose face was covered, others weeping pitifully. Who was dead in the White House? I demanded of one of the soldiers. The president was his answer.

Starting point is 00:33:00 He was killed by an assassin. Then came a loud burst of grief from the crowd, which awoke me from my dream. I slept no more that night, and although it was only a dream, I had been strangely annoyed by it ever since. That's horrid, said Mrs. Lincoln. I wish you had not told it. I am glad I don't believe in dreams, or I should be in terror from this time forth. Well, responded Mr. Lincoln thoughtfully, it is only a dream, Mary.

Starting point is 00:33:25 Let us say no more about it and try to forget it. Now, obviously, if this had just been some account of Mrs. Tylerd, I think I said a telliered before, Tyler, herself being psychic or encountering some sort of spirit entity confirming the story with her word alone would certainly be sufficient enough, at least to justify a cursory investigation. However, when one supposedly invokes the words of the president himself, I felt that slightly more rigor should be applied. By comparing the facts and Lemons' version of the story to various other accounts of the president's activities and movements during this period, I discovered that though Mr. Lincoln speaks of this dream occurring 10 days ago, quote, unquote, and the book mentions the story being told, quote, only a few days before his assassination, unquote. The president also mentions that he was waiting for dispatches from the front,

Starting point is 00:34:14 when in reality, from March 24th through April 9th, he was already, he was actually already at the front himself and could request a briefing whenever he liked without needing a dispatch of any kind. Now, of course, this is only one small detail in a larger tale, and a misremembered date hardly invalidates the truth of such an intimate moment alone. And even if this story is less than perfect, perfectly consistent with itself, as I've recently discovered, it's hardly the only time President Lincoln has been involved with psychical, psychical, unknowable things hidden just beyond the veil. Then another interview with Lincoln published just three months after his death in Harper's

Starting point is 00:34:49 Monthly, the president told yet another bizarre tale of his impending tragic demise. Quote, it was just after my election in 1860 when the news had been coming in thick and fast all day and there had been a great hurrah boys so that I was well tired out and went home to rest, throwing myself down in a lounge in my chair, in my chamber. Opposite where I lay was a bureau with a swing glass upon it, and looking at that glass I saw myself reflected nearly at full length, but my face I noticed had two separate and distinct images. The tip of the nose of one being about three inches from the tip of the other, I was a little bothered, perhaps startled, and got up and looked in the glass, but the illusion vanished.

Starting point is 00:35:28 On lying down again, I saw it a second time, plainer, if possible, than before. And then I noticed that one of the faces was a little paler, say, five shades than the other. I got up and the thing melted away. And I went off and in the excitement of the hour forgot all about it nearly, but not quite, for the thing would once in a while come up and give me a little pang as though something uncomfortable had happened. When I went home, I told my wife about it. and a few days later, and a few days after I tried the experiment again,

Starting point is 00:35:57 when sure enough, the thing came again. But I never succeeded in bringing the ghost back after that, though once I tried very industriously to show it to my wife, who was worried about it somewhat. She thought it was a sign that I was to be elected to a second term of office, and that the paleness of one of the faces was an omen that I should not see life through the last term. I have also heard some reports of Mary Todd Lincoln being photographed with her late husbands go sometime in early 1872, and I'll soon be on my way to interview the relatives

Starting point is 00:36:25 of the supposed photographer, one William Mumler of Boston. But that's a story for another time and place, and perhaps will one day be told by someone else. And it was. It was me on this very show, not that long ago. But just in case you thought that that was all fake, here is a copy of that book with that story in it from that time by that man. here is the interview with Abraham Lincoln from Harpers in a collection of Harpers.

Starting point is 00:36:55 Here is a photograph of Ward Hill Lemon where he looks like a fucking cartoon cowboy type guy. He was photographed there around 1860. He doesn't have a Buffalo Bill vibe. Yeah, he's got a vibe. He absolutely does. Here he is with Lincoln at the Battle of Antietam. He is sitting in the chair at that top head. Top hat.

Starting point is 00:37:19 Yeah. Here is a portrait of Dorothy Tellard, who is Lemons daughter. This is a portrait of her that she had made in Paris in 1890 because her boyfriend liked butterflies. A pretty interesting little portrait. That's weird. Yeah. And then as this is like mini-sode fodder, but just in case you guys don't remember, here's

Starting point is 00:37:44 the same picture that I brought up during the Mumler bit earlier about spirit photography. this is Mary Todd Lincoln in 1872 in Boston. Oh yeah, she loved doing this stuff. Yeah. Posing with Lincoln's ghost. And yeah, I didn't include it. I could see the hand. Oh, yeah, there he is.

Starting point is 00:38:00 Oh, my, dude, this looks like one of those like Jesus photos that people like create with them. So there's Lincoln's on their shoulders. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. I mean, obviously there's the way that you can look at this where it's like, you know,

Starting point is 00:38:12 and because I, you know, I did a lot of investigating into Kennedy's death also where it's like, oh, two days ago. Kennedy told me he thought he was going to die, dude, I swear. Dude, I swear, I was like sleeping and I had a dream and it was like the president's dead, you know, like that type of thing. Like, I just feel like such an earth-shaking news story kind of like creates those stories no matter what. Like, you know, when your grandpa dies, like a lot of the things that he said to recently become a lot more profound. You know what I mean? Yeah. Stuff like that. So I feel like there's probably an element of that going on here. And obviously, you know, the accuracy of his, his words published

Starting point is 00:38:48 posthumously, you know, I don't know, but they're very interesting and philosophical. And, you know, on the one hand, I want to give, I want to say that maybe Ward Lemon wrote the first story himself. And it seems like very out of character for Lincoln. But then this other story, which is quoted in Harper's, which I feel like is a little bit more legit of a publication. like he told a very similar sort of spooky story about himself. And that's in a magazine. Like, I don't know. That obviously it was published after he died again.

Starting point is 00:39:25 So it could be just yellow journalism. But true. You know, the Victorian era was a very strange time in England and America. I don't know if it counts as the Victorian era in America. Does that, what do you call it? The antebellum period, I guess. Yeah, I don't know. But speaking of the Victorian era, let's actually go to England.

Starting point is 00:39:46 with The Thing at 50 Berkeley Square, which will be read by Jesse. In investigating a peculiar 1873 tax collection difficulty involving a man called Frederick Myers or sometimes Thomas Myers, I discovered this man had purchased the house at number 50 Berkeley Square in central London for the purposes of starting a new married life there after he was recently engaged to be married sometime around 1859 or 1860. And it's discovering, I stumbled upon a story which will never leave me as long as I live and which will likely never fully comprehend. Sadly, just a few days before the much-anticipated wedding, Mr. Meyer's wife, to be

Starting point is 00:40:33 suddenly and rather shockingly, ran off and married someone else. Or, in other versions, they were briefed. and the love didn't hold, but either way it went, to put it quite simply, losing this woman broke the young man's spirit. For years on, he remained in the house, never touching any of the fine carpets or furniture or China or great commissioned artworks he'd order for his new bride, remaining so quiet and so overwhelmingly eccentric in his lifestyle that his neighbors hardly even believed anyone was living there. According to a lady-dorkewarm. Dorothy Neville, who I'd met recently in town after following the names on some legal documentation,

Starting point is 00:41:20 and who was slightly related to the poor Mr. Myers by marriage, he relied entirely on his servants and never left the apartment himself once in 20 years, though it was infrequently called upon, oh, he was infrequently called upon by his sister. She reported his numbness and malaise was so overwhelming, so overwhelming his, that some of the carpets were not even untied or unrolled from where they were first delivered on his wedding day. However, by night, the man would flit about the place like some crazed rabbit gnat or lizard beast, with a solitary candle moaning and shuffling around in such a manner that the same neighbors who doubted Mr. Myers' existence were starting to suspect supernatural forces were at work in his place. As an aside, I wonder if this man, Mr. Myers, is the person James Payne, told Mr. Dickens about whom he modeled Mrs. Havisham after.

Starting point is 00:42:18 Perhaps I should try and contact Mr. McKenzie by spirit medium and ask him, I won't interrupt this story any longer. Upon Mr. Myers' death, his sister sent house agents to inspect the premise, and they returned with reports of a building so neglected, so moldering, so dilapidated, that condition. did not appear livable, and yet the two older maids who still called the place home never admitted to any strangeness. Lady Neville seemed to believe that the entire notion of a haunting at 50 Berkeley Square rose from the tragic life of her distant relation, and that any else that came from it was sheer nonsense, but also freely admitted that Frederick Meyer's sister was inundated with messages of all kinds and extremes from curious bystanders at the near constant rate, even some of particularly high social status, requesting permission to spend a night there

Starting point is 00:43:17 and witness the alleged terror for themselves. In conducting some independent research on the topic, I did find an account of a Lord Thomas Littleton, spending a night in the room sometime late 1872, who brought along two shotguns full of buckshot and silver sixpence coins for protection. During the night, he claimed that something came at him out of the shadows and that he discharged his weapon, sending its dark form shooting to the ground like a rocket. But upon further investigation the following morning, there was no sign of any creature, just holes from spent buckshot. Sitting in the corner of a local pub, as I have been the past few nights,

Starting point is 00:43:59 I heard the creature Lord Littleton saw the knight described as a small girl in a brown mist, a gray mass, a pale, naked man with the gaping mouth, and a sickening purple tentacle beast. But none seems any more true to the tale as I heard it than any other. And yet, as more and more witnesses shared with me what they heard, I hadn't yet realized that I was also drawing a certain degree of attention to myself as a strange American in central London asking questions about monsters and addicts to odd and mysterious ends. So it should not have been as surprising as it was when finally an aging laborer and his young apprentice found me one night in pub where I was staying and offered to buy me a glass of

Starting point is 00:44:48 beer. The elder of the two craftsmen explained that they worked specifically in wrought iron and about 15 years ago on Christmas Day, 1887, he and his previous work partner were called to 50 Berkeley Square for an emergency removal and repair of wrought iron gate. Since the view of a recently dead man impaled, as he was that day upon such a thing, was deemed too gruesome for the holidays by authorities and general passerby alike. Did I miss something in this story?

Starting point is 00:45:18 There's just a dead man on a gate now? He's getting there. He's getting there. He's getting there. Sorry. According to the old man's story, he recalled that the deceased was called Edward Blondon, and that he was actually one of two sailors who was in London that previous night on shore leave from their post aboard the Coast Guard ship, the HMS Penelope, out of Harwich Dockyard in Essex.

Starting point is 00:45:44 After a night of heavy drinking, Edward and his friend Robert Martin saw the empty house with a two-let sign in the window, A fact that I confirmed was possible by checking archive local newsprints from the time and which a local collector was happy to share. No specific address was mentioned, but there were indeed several properties being advertised that could be a good match. Either way, seeing that the house wasn't currently occupied and that they were drunk enough that sleeping became an unignorable priority, they chose to let themselves in under their own strength,

Starting point is 00:46:20 and bundled themselves up in the very same room that Lord Littleton and Miss Myers had before them. The gatemaker claimed that when he saw him the next morning, Mr. Martin was muttering about footfalls in the hall outside the room and seeing short glimpses of some creature, which he couldn't bear to recall to describe. Eventually, it seems the thing decided to attack them, and while Mr. Martin made it back down the hall and out the front door, Mr. Blundon either by force or by reason of insanity, chose the window instead, and threw himself straight down into a grisly end, just 22 inches above the street.

Starting point is 00:46:59 Now, morbid as that may sound, I admit I found myself particularly fascinated by this case, because unlike other stories of haunted houses, I've been told, not only have several deaths potentially been attributed directly to this entity, but also witnesses to the horrors inside 50 Berkeley Square have all provided wildly different descriptions of something which seems acutely dangerous, and certainly does not adhere to the more classical descriptions of ten intangible ghosts or spirits who would normally expect to encounter from beyond the veil. At first, I suspect, Mr. Myers of being a more mysterious figure than he led on, and I imagined that perhaps his dark, broken soul was leading him down a path to performing some more occult or profane magical arts.

Starting point is 00:47:54 But the more I spoke with Lady Neville, the less and less sure I became of my conclusions. Until finally, Lady Neville repeated an innocuous fact, which I hadn't quite understood properly at the time, but which now, changed my whole perception of events. The only reason Myers had purchased this house in the first place was because he got it on very advantageous terms, as there was already some idea of the place being haunted before he ever arrived. Suddenly, I found myself back in the official records, tracing ownership of 50 Berkeley Square farther and farther back in time.

Starting point is 00:48:36 Before Mr. Myers, the house had belonged to Miss Curzon. who lived there from 1827 until her death in 1859, reporting no strange activity for the duration of her time spent there. At first, a bit discouraged by this, I nevertheless pressed on and quickly discovered that the owner before that, the statesman George Canning, had famously died of consumption in office after serving only 119 days as prime minister. Longer than Liz Truss. It's true. Had indeed claimed to have regularly heard strange noises. and experienced psychic phenomena in the house.

Starting point is 00:49:11 And even before that, shortly after its initial construction, 160 years ago in 1740, I was able to find claims of phantom footsteps, and the sounds of dragging being heard when no one was there. In the notes of the architect William Kent, who built it in that place. And so, all these months later, as much as I've learned about it,

Starting point is 00:49:34 I feel no close to identifying the thing of 50 Berkeley Square, than I did when I started. But I'll tell you this. Whatever its true nature may be in the end, there's certainly something up there. And I myself wouldn't go have a look for it, even if I was invited. So there you go.

Starting point is 00:49:56 The Most Haunted Building in London. Here is a copy of that book, The Remil. This is actually Lady Dorothy Neville put her stories in a book a few years later. So that's her book, the reminiscence of Lady Dorothy Neville from 1920. Here's a picture of Lady Dorothy Neville, how she looked in 1861, which is a little bit closer to how... Damn, that dress.

Starting point is 00:50:19 Yeah, I know. Very crazy. She's a very interesting character, Lady Dorothy Neville. If you read her book, she's got a hilarious voice. Here is an illustration of 50 Berkeley Square from haunted houses by Charles G. Harper from 1907. So you can get kind of an idea of how it looked like at the time. kind of just like it looks like literally when I was looking at pictures of this earlier, Kelly asked if this was an Airbnb that we stayed in while we were in London. It does. It does look like it.

Starting point is 00:50:46 Yeah. Yeah. Looks generic, but kind of unmistakably upper, upper crust London. And then here's an illustration of the thing from the haunted house in Berkeley Square by Edric Redenberg from 1891. This is one of the more beautiful descriptions of the thing. You know, people are talking about a woman and mist. This is that version of it. Here is a new. newspaper clipping from the morning post advertising space to let in Berkeley Square the same week as the deaths if you want to see. And then also on I added a Google Maps link so you can see what it looks like today at 50 Berkeley Square, which is almost exactly the fucking same as a picture from 120 years ago, like almost exactly down to the colors. It's crazy. Interesting. It is

Starting point is 00:51:32 yeah. It looks. It's definitely one of those places. where, when you see it from the outside, you're like, oh, no, this is an old London house. Yeah,

Starting point is 00:51:45 yeah. It used to be for a really long time, like a bookshop. I forget what the name of the, the booksellers was, but it was like a really popular one for many years. They just moved like 10 years ago, but it was there since like the 40s,

Starting point is 00:51:54 but yeah, I guess it was just a rich place that you guys stayed at. Yeah. It does look like that. But I like this story because it kind of had like a Cthului flavor. Sure. I feel like this is not a ghost story. Like,

Starting point is 00:52:07 why, but people see like a naked guy or like an octopus tentacle. I found that very different than most like spooky house stories. So I just, I find a particular level of life in that one that I thought was interesting. It is interesting, but I'm really curious about Miss Curzon who saw nothing. Right. That's the, she was there for 20 some years and had no experiences. That's the, that's the person to talk to. Also, the maids saw nothing. The maids that lived 20 years. years and there with Mr. Myers, who, like I said, may, I mean, like it said in the story, may have been the inspiration for Ms. Habisham, for real. That's crazy. Isn't that interesting? That's awesome. I love that. They, like, Dickens said it's a real person and I didn't exaggerate

Starting point is 00:52:53 it is, is what he said. And nobody knows who it is, but some people think it's, it's Thomas Myers who lived at this house. Huh. That's cool. The next story that we have is called The Boy in Pink, and it's going to be read by Mathis. I think that's like what the fucking aliens have me labeled as when they come visit Earth. You're just the pink boy in pink. Yeah. You're the big boy.

Starting point is 00:53:18 Yeah. You're the very pink boy. It's what you are. Yeah. While visiting Reneshaw Hall in Derbyshire, or is it Derbyshire, Derbyshire, on the strength of its reputation as the family home of the notoriously eccentric sitwell since its construction in 1625 and whose loneliest rooms and cellars have been, have often been said to house a particularly nasty breed of ghosts to the tune invisible.

Starting point is 00:53:41 shuffling feet and the furious rattling of door handles. I met the young lady of the house Dame Edith or Edith Sitwell, who was reciting poetry to herself in the drawing room. Really did. God, there really just was nothing to do back then. Yeah. Reciting poetry to yourself, I'm fucking so bored already. I happened upon her merely by chance, but she nevertheless had plenty to say about the

Starting point is 00:54:04 otherworldly forces at work in place in that place despite only being about 13 years of age. She had, she claimed, encountered these poltergeist many times since first becoming aware of them several years ago and complained that their incessant limping about was making it difficult to concentrate on her schooling at times. Fantastic description, a limping about. She described it as a sound of whispering waves, which echoed through the minds of her and her cousins in the week since she encountered it and receiving the distinct psychic impression that they were being hunted. Is that what like the little ghostly voices in your apartment sound like Alex? I do not get the feeling. I don't get the feeling that they're after me. No, no, but does it sound like whispering waves?

Starting point is 00:54:47 Like, is that kind of like how it sounds? It just sounds like a dude is like like stretching in the other room. Like it's like doing like back stretches. Wait a minute. I thought it was like a grandma or something I thought. Huh? Do you have a new like a new voice that's joined the chorus? No, no.

Starting point is 00:55:01 Not the voice. The voice is barely anything. The voice is like, did somebody just say something? you know, kind of voice, but just like what I hear mostly is like, oh, somebody's getting a cup out of the cupboard. You know what I mean? Like, oh, somebody's in the kitchen, turning around in a circle. You know what I mean?

Starting point is 00:55:17 Yeah, okay, okay. Yeah, that kind of like the rattling of the door handles, but a little less violent. Yeah. Yes. I have an apartment. So there's not that much that a ghost can like do to be creepy. No, no. In fact, they should probably just like go elsewhere, man.

Starting point is 00:55:28 Everything's like 30 feet away in this entire apartment. Yeah. It probably doesn't get bored and walking in circles. Not allowed to leave. That's a shitty part about being the ghost. She's Xbox. It'll be good. Yeah. Yeah. Then they're set. They're set. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:55:40 So, yeah, anyway, she wasn't sure if it was a dream or a vision or reality as she spoke, but she also briefly referred to a black mist, which was possibly able to induce in them some sort of trance-like state, which affected their moods and their memories. But at this point, we were suddenly interrupted by Edith's bombastic father, Sir George Sitwell, upon whose arrival Edith ran off into some other dark corner of the house to continue reciting her strange rhythmic verses. I found it surprising that when I told Mr. Sitwell of the topic of his daughter and I's discussion, he did not protest or admonished, but rather launched into an incredible

Starting point is 00:56:16 tale of a time before Edith had even been born in 1885. While throwing a party in celebration of his 25th birthday, which apparently was planned for several consecutive days at Renaud Shaw Hall, one of his overnight guests, the daughter of Archbishop A.C. Tate had mentioned that sleeping in her borrowed room the previous night had left her rather disturbed as she had been awoken with the start in the dead of night by the sensation of being given three icy, slobbery kisses while she lay completely alone in bed. This is what like Jesse said he would be begging.

Starting point is 00:56:48 Yeah, exactly. Jesse's got my first thought. I don't want. Dude, Slobbery kisses. Ice cold, slobry. I don't want that.

Starting point is 00:56:55 Cold slobry kisses. Come on. Right. From a ghost, though, man. They don't, they haven't gotten to a long time. So you can't expect, like, really good kisses. I can think of plenty of other things.

Starting point is 00:57:04 I want slobary besides ice cold kisses. Well, dude, who got to work there? You got to work up to her. You know, you don't know, not the ghost. It's a ghost from an older time. No, the ghost. This ghost might just be a pair of lips that's wet. Just think about that.

Starting point is 00:57:16 That's true. That's the worst type of ghosts. I'd rather have a poltergeist like flings knives than a sloppy wet kissed ghost. I think those things are in chrono trigger. I think I know. I think I know this. Yeah. Anyway, Sitwell himself simply laughed in her face, as I guess most would.

Starting point is 00:57:34 at the sheer ridiculousness of the claim, but at the exact same moment, another guest of his, one Mr. Turnbull said that he shouldn't write off the woman's story outright as a childhood friend of his wife, who had apparently herself stayed overnight at Renishaw several years ago, had experienced the exact same thing. Now, I suppose that alone never really amounted to anything substantial, but what's quite interesting about it is a few years later,

Starting point is 00:57:56 while expanding a nearby staircase, Sir George said he suddenly remembered these strange tales of this kissing ghost and decided to have the floorboards of the room, which was just nearby ripped up and the room properly investigated. For like someone under the floorboards pop up and be like, smooch, mooch. He just wanted to see.

Starting point is 00:58:14 Yeah, he possibly just wanted to keep. He was curious. He was, if you look up this guy, you will find that this guy is one of the weirdest. He's like Doctor Who, but a real guy. He's like a wacky. He's literally a famous,

Starting point is 00:58:28 famous English eccentric is what they call. That's a wild way to have. yourself remember. Even if, even if, like, that was a Doctor Who episode, the mystery of the kissing ghost. Yeah. It'd be one of the ones that I hate. The lips. Oh, the lips, doctor. They're so cold. Dr. O'clock. Doctor, you should be no gus.

Starting point is 00:58:46 Doctor who's back, you son of a bitches. Everybody who thought he was dead, fuck you. He's back. The doctor's back. As in the form of a pair of kissing lips. Yeah, he's back. David Tennant's kissing lips. Slobbery lips. Horrible episode.

Starting point is 00:59:02 Also, really complex and good if you think about it. Okay. Going back to the fucking story. And to everyone assembled, everyone assembled astonishment. They actually were able to recover an empty coffin, which appeared to be between one and 200 years old from beneath the room. It strangely seemed to have been fastened with no cover to the floor joint, uh, joints by joists, sorry, to the floor joyce using iron clamps as if the entire floor of the room

Starting point is 00:59:30 itself was meant to serve as the coffin's lid. He briefly mentioned something further about the coffin, possibly belonging to a certain boy in pink, who had drowned it upon somewhere nearly 200 years ago. Oh, so it's a wet, slobbery kiss from a little boy? I don't know. I don't like this.

Starting point is 00:59:47 No, sir, I don't like it. I don't like this at all. I don't know where this is going. I'm just here to, I'm just here for the ride. I love this pam. This is a neat pamphlet. The wet sloppy kisses of the boy in pink.

Starting point is 00:59:56 Unfortunately, he went on to claim that these were all just silly women's stories. Oh, thank God. I forgot that these stories are from women who we can't trust because they are silly. I mean, yeah, yeah, obviously. It frightened them due to their inferior nervous systems. God, what it must be to be an inferior individual, to be a woman with a nervous system that is what I'm not quite sure what a nervous system has to do with them. It just represents me. A male with top hat and sideburns.

Starting point is 01:00:22 It's just whatever their insecurities are. That's what it is. Yeah, yeah. Inferior nervous system. Perfect explanation. And he seemed quite unwilling to budge on this fact. on account of being fleeced by some medium he met who had dressed up for his group as a dead 12-year-old girl. And he said that real ghosts shouldn't need a corset, especially one who died so young and that lots of people had agreed with them in the newspapers.

Starting point is 01:00:44 So I politely saw my way out. Well, she was just trying to put out a good show, really trying to get you to believe in it. Get your dollars worth out of that medium. And yet this notion of a boy in pink stuck in my mind for several days after. And soon, despite my misgivings, I found myself back at Renishaw Hall where eating. showed me a painting of an almost ethereal looking boy dressed in a light red whom she told me was called Henry Satcheverrell Satchavarral Satchavarral maybe Sacaverill. Yeah.

Starting point is 01:01:12 And was the last of the Satchavarral family line. I don't like that this person was like, you know what? I can't get the thought of this little pink, sloppy wet kiss boy out of my mind. And against his own, despite his own misgivings, was like, I'm going to go see the picture of this little pink wet boy. You have to see it. I don't, you know, the boy's not wet in the picture.

Starting point is 01:01:32 Just for the record. We'll see the picture before, before this day is done. We will see the picture. Why is his lips so wet? Because he drowned in a pond. So moist. He's a little boy.

Starting point is 01:01:42 And why he's giving kisses and why does a grown person be like, can't get this little boy out of his mind? I don't know. All right. Hold on. Hold on now. You're putting your own neuroses on this. I'm reading the story.

Starting point is 01:01:53 I don't know. You're like obsessed the little boy bit. And not the fact that a random spectrum. kissed you in the middle of like I can see being obsessed with the fact that like what what the hell was that if it's a specter of an adult person little boy a person if any person did that it'd be weird what do you mean but not if it's a ghost read on read on my boy it's dark sparkling eyes stood out against his powder white skin and stared at me from within the painting as if they contained something of his spirit what I could do but what could I do but stare straight back

Starting point is 01:02:29 into them until Sir George, who came up behind us in the dark, lit by a single candle, told us that in the story he had heard as a boy, young Henry was only 16 when he stood for the painting and that it was completed just a few weeks before he drowned in the River, in the River Rother in 1726. Young Henry and his brother William, he said, were sent to live with their Uncle George, who also happened to be our George Stillwell's grandfather when their own parents unexpectedly died, and in the story he had always heard from his mother, thought it was only an innocent skating accident, though it was only an innocent skating accident, had Henry lived, he would have been the heir to the large majority of the Renishaw states.

Starting point is 01:03:13 Now, he should have been perfectly at peace with this explanation for the rest of his life, he said, and probably would have, would never have even considered the notion again, where it not for his mother's made a Miss Lickley, who told Sir George that the true story which she had heard on a trip into town was that Henry actually passed away while fishing with his female cousin in a pound at the bottom of a park when he accidentally fell in the water.

Starting point is 01:03:40 But instead of helping him back onto shore, his cousin, who was next in line of succession, held him under until he drowned ensuring her own lavish future. Wow, you sure she didn't push him into the pond and that he didn't fall in accidentally? Like some story goes. And then, according to Miss Lickley,

Starting point is 01:03:58 years later on her wedding day as she was getting ready for in the famous ghost room of renishaw's east wing when suddenly while looking at herself in a mirror she saw henry's eyes peering at her from behind a tapestry over her shoulder which supposedly frightened her so much she died on the spot yo my god wait so where's the kissing come in keep going he casted phantasmal killer from d and d three point five and it will and he succeeded his role yeah not satisfied with either explanation however sir george sitwell said his next step was to do the research for himself almost immediately he discovered that in truth it wasn't henry who drowned it was his older brother william and that it happened in wakefield during july of night of 1725 while the boys were off at school however this didn't leave henry

Starting point is 01:04:47 much luckier as he died of smallpox about a year later but not before standing for a certain painting by a Mr. Averellst, which according to records the painter was paid for upon its completion in June of 1726. Also, he was pleased to discover that Catherine Sitwell, who ended up as the eventual heiress in question, never even saw her status threatened by Henry or William for that matter, and as far as the law was concerned, gained absolutely nothing from either of their deaths. though it was rather sad to see the noble satcheverl line extinguished so unceremoniously and under such bleak circumstances. And yet, Sir Sittwell admitted that despite finding such a substantial rational explanation for this story, he still was yet to be fully satisfied, explaining that he still often finds himself wandering here late at night

Starting point is 01:05:37 when he's up walking the house aimlessly in thought, staring over and over into young Henry's long dead eyes. "'Whatever for, man, I asked. "'Are these not, as you say, mere games for nervous women?' "'I only wish it were so, Mr. Fleming,' he utterly uttered soberly. "'But in putting on such a brave front, I wasn't entirely honest with you. "'You see, it's true. "'I didn't take the kissing that night for more than a joke, "'even after Mr. Turnbull gave it such weight.

Starting point is 01:06:03 "'But then my own sister came to me, incredulous, "' horrified by the three cold kisses she'd gotten, "'and my cousin Minnie came to me, too, three cold wet kisses alone in her bed. And so I called again upon Mr. Turnbull's wife's childhood friend, Miss Crane, she was called, and she told me that she was not merely kissed that night, but that she heard someone slowly walk up to her bedroom door, knock three times, enter when she said come in,

Starting point is 01:06:30 and then quietly sit for a spell in an armchair by the fireplace. And so now I find myself left with a chilling question. If not the overactive imaginations of nervous, women getting the best of them, then just what is it? And why the coffin with floorboards for a lid? I attempted to sleep in there myself, but could hardly bear to close my eyes without placing a hat on the armchair first. Superstitions are unbecoming, I know, but can you truly blame knowing the circumstances?

Starting point is 01:06:59 It is as if, it is as my mother always said. A ghost that sits on a hat is lost, and I suppose better to be safe than to be sorry. So there you go. that's the boy in pink who wasn't actually a ghost at all. And maybe the ghost was the ghost of William, who was a kissy, kissy boy while he was away at school. We don't know. But nevertheless, here is a painting by John Singer,

Starting point is 01:07:23 Sargent from 1900 that is a portrait of George Sitwell, his wife lady Ida Sitwell, and Edith, his daughter, the poet, who ended up being a poet, actually. Here is a possible version of the boy in pink by Varellst from 1726. so significantly older painting. And then just to give you an idea, this is from 1910, which is before, which is after this story.

Starting point is 01:07:47 But here is a picture of Renishal Hall from 1910. And you can kind of see what kind of place it is, which I'm pretty sure is pretty much exactly what you imagine, right? But yeah, I don't know. I think the painting is kind of interesting. He looks like a fucking vampire. He does not look like a 16 year old boy. He does have a vampire vibe.

Starting point is 01:08:04 Yeah. All these old paintings. And Edith, I thought originally that the boy. in pink was in this painting because the way that the way that the uh the articles are this is the this is the painting that they always show is this one with edith in the red uh dress with the black boots and she's she looks kind of manly in this picture i would say but uh yeah i don't know a very interesting story um and kind of interestingly well established which a lot with a lot of like real colorful characters like i really encourage you to look into the sit wells and

Starting point is 01:08:38 George Sitwell, Sir George Sitwell and Edith Sit Well, because they're so weird. There's such interesting people, really, really strange. But yeah, we're almost done. We're into our last story. It's called The Luminous Chamber. And it's going to be read by Jesse Cox. Thank you guys so much for hanging out stories from Beyond the Void. It's been a fun experiment.

Starting point is 01:09:05 It's one of the funest episodes I've ever put together. such a good time. Maybe not like the most compelling subject matter all the time, but I just really had a good time making this one. So thanks. Here you go. I had for several weeks been receiving letters from a man called Westwood out of Belgium. He had heard I was keeping a room in England for the later part of this latest centennial year from which I, from which to conduct my research and quite adamantly demanded that we should meet, as he would shortly be in town. for some sort of academic conference. He said that he would be staying somewhere on Somerset

Starting point is 01:09:45 and even offered me train fare for the journey. He explained in his letters that he was familiar with the late Mr. McKenzie, who had never opened his ghostly letter from the even later Mr. Buckley, there was some professional connections with his son at Christchurch. He claimed that once he heard I was in the market for, true stories to amaze and mystify, he knew he had quite the whopper for me, and thought I might be interested in a short half-days ride out to the country to see something for myself. A train fare arrived with little hassle, and at the appointed time I made my way over to the nearest

Starting point is 01:10:27 train station and rode out to the country, where I found a man whom I at first mistook for a confused porter. He had been waiting for several hours alone, expecting to have met with. with Mr. Westwood earlier at some sort of English saloon nearby for a drink, as his father, a Mr. T. Westwood, and this man's father were close friends for many years, and had visited the place they were about to take me together once before as younger men. After two more hours, with no developments of any sort, the man who kindly asked that I not share his name this writing, decided that Mr. Westwood probably just went ahead without us, forgetting he did not tell us to meet him in Taunton, a rather quiet old town that lay just a few miles up the road.

Starting point is 01:11:16 When we arrived at the inn, however, things took a dark turn. As once the barman confirmed the Mr. Westwood had never arrived for his pre-arranged room, the fellow I was with drop the bags he was holding and shot off into the woods without comment, and it was all I could do to run right after him. We ran together for a long while through the trees until we came to a road that must have run through the area for some other undetectable direction, disorientated as I was in an unfamiliar country overseas. After 45 seconds or so running right along it, we happened upon what appeared to be an old musty hall in the woods. No porter, no horses, no carts, but with one soft light still burning in a central window.

Starting point is 01:12:02 Barely slowing as he made his way to the door, as if he knew it'd be unlocked, the man turned the handle while sighing with exhaustion, threw the thing wide on its frame and made his way inside. Where almost immediately, as I followed in, I was met with a wall of anguish, whale of anguish even, but it could have been a wall form of anguish, pulled from the very depths of the man's soul,

Starting point is 01:12:30 like the sound of soldier makes, a sound a soldier makes when he sees his brother killed on the battlefield. As I rounded the corner into the room, I saw the man curled in a corner wet and shaking like a newborn deer. The room was empty otherwise, but for a table and two chairs, and though it was well past sundown by now, I could clearly see that they're sitting on the table,

Starting point is 01:12:55 the only other item of interest in the room was a beat-up old copy of the April 15th, 173 edition of Notes and Queries, a rather incongruous, that's the word, rather incongruous and unexpected appearance of the long-running quarterly journal from the Oxford University Press, which with a feather marker tucked in between pages 272 and 273. And I apologize, that's 1873. That's a misprint. Ah, it was a section about ghosts and haunted houses. And of the three stories included,

Starting point is 01:13:33 there were indeed, which were indeed attributed to a Mr. T. Westwood out of Belgium, one had been circled over and over again in fresh ink. It was called the luminous chamber. This is what it said. In the year 1840, I was detained for several months in the sleepy old town of Taunton. My chief associate during that time was a fox hunting squire,

Starting point is 01:13:55 a buff, hearty, genial type of his order with just sufficient intellectual intellectuality intellectuality. That's a old, that's a word they don't use no more. Intellectuality. To temper his animal exuberance. Many were our merry rides among the throats and hamlets of pleasant Somersetshire. And it was in one of these excursions.

Starting point is 01:14:25 while the evening sky was like molten copper and a fiery march wind coursed like a racehorse over the open downs that he related to me the story of what he called his luminous chamber. Coming back from the hunt after dark, he said he had frequently observed a central window and an old hall not far from the roadside illuminated. All the other windows were dark, but from this one, wan, dreary light was visible. And, as the owners had deserted the place, and he knew it had no occupant, the lighted window became a puzzle to him. On one occasion, having a brother squire with him and both carrying good store of port wine under their girdles, they declared that they would solve the mystery of the luminous chamber then and there. Lodge was still tenanted by an aged porter, him the they roused up, and after some delay having obtained a lantern, the keys of the hall they proceeded to make their entry.

Starting point is 01:15:29 Before opening the great door, however, my squire averred, averred, averred. Yep, averred. He had made careful inspection of the front of the house from the lawn. Sure enough, the central window was illuminated. An eerie forlorn-looking light made it stand out in contrast to the rest, a dismal light that seemed, to have nothing in common with the world, or the life, that is. The two squires visited all the other rooms, leaving the luminous room to last. There was nothing noticeable in any of them.

Starting point is 01:16:06 They were totally obscure. But on entering the luminous room, a marked change was perceptible. The light in it was not full, but sufficiently so beneath them to distinguish the various articles of furniture, which were common and scale. dante enough. What struck them most was the uniform diffusion of the light. It was as strong under the table as on the table so that no single object projected any shadow on the floor, nor did they themselves project any shadow. Looking into a great mirror over the mantel place, nothing, uh, huh? Looking into the great mirror over the mantel place, nothing could be

Starting point is 01:16:49 weirder the squire declared than the reflection in it of the dim one lit chamber and of the two awestricken faces that glared back at them from the from the midst of his and his own companions. He told me, too, that he had not been many seconds in the room before sick faintness stole over him, a feeling such as one, his expression, I remember as if his life were being sucked out of him. His friend owned afterwards to a similar sensation. The upshot of it was they both squires decamped, crestfallen, and made no effort to attempt solving the mystery. It had always been the same, the old porter grumbled. The family had never occupied the room, but there were no ghosts. The room had a light of its own, a less skeptical spirit might have opined that the room was

Starting point is 01:17:43 full of ghosts, an awful conclave, viewless, inscrutable, but from whom emanated. the deathly and deadly luminousness. My squires must have gone all the way all... Jesus Christ. My squires must have gone the way of all squires air this. After life's fitful fever, do they sleep well? Or have they both been sucked into the luminous medium as a penalty for their intrusion?

Starting point is 01:18:14 And with that, as I came to the end of this tale, I suddenly knew that we wouldn't be seen. seeing Mr. Westwood ever again, not today and not tomorrow, not ever, and somehow I found peace in that. For you must remember, as they say, tomorrow and tomorrow creeps in this petty pace from day to day to the last syllable of recorded time. And all our yesterdays have lighted fools the way to dusty death. Out, out brief candle.

Starting point is 01:18:46 Life is but a walking shadow. a poor player that struts and frets its hour upon the stage and then is heard no more. It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury signifying nothing. The room has a light of its own, and Mr. Westwood, like all of us, has simply gotten up for a moment to look beyond the veil. Patreon.com slash Tumonti pod. Thank you for listening. Goodbye, everybody.

Starting point is 01:19:26 Welcome back to the Joluminaati podcast. As always, I'm one of your host, Mike Martin, joined by the... I don't know who. Terrence Hill and Bud Spencer. No. Neo and Trinity. No. I don't understand, and I probably never will.

Starting point is 01:19:51 Let me just tell you. I'm telling you, I think he literally just looked up famous duos. Cheech and Chaw. And this has been going through the list ever since. I'm trying to dig deep. Which one of you is Dick Powell? Me? Your name's Jesse Cox.

Starting point is 01:20:23 I want my Machilina. I'm always I'm one of your host, Mike Martin, joined by Alex and Jesse.

Chilluminati Podcast - Episode 322: Stories From Beyond The Veil

There aren't comments yet for this episode. Click on any sentence in the transcript to leave a comment.