Otherworld - Episode 27: The Goop Demon

Episode Date: March 27, 2023

Two friends believe they may have accidentally summoned a demonic entity while imitating something they saw on Gwenyth Paltrow's Netflix show "Goop Lab". Possible Correction: The Goop Labs episode in question was "Episode 6: Are You Intuit?", not the episode specifically about Energy Healing. Special thanks to Melinda Lee Holmes for answering my questions. Melinda is an author, Tarot expert, and "witch about town". She also worked at a crystal shop in Los Angeles for many years, so if there's such thing as a "Goop Incident" expert, she is probably that too. To see photos related to this episode, click here Subscribe to Otherworld on Patreon for exclusive content and bonus interviews Check out our Merch Follow us on: Instagram, TikTok, Twitter  If you have experienced something paranormal or unexplained, email us your full story at [e-mail] To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Welcome to Otherworld. I'm your host Jack Wagner. I obviously get a lot of emails submitted to me for this show with a lot of different stories, and those stories have a wide range of topics and a wide range in quality. Sometimes I'm reading a story, and right away I could tell I have something incredible on my hands. I know right away that this is going to be turned into an amazing episode. Other times, I know right away that, the story is not so great. And it's probably not something

that's going to make it out of the show for a wide variety of reasons. I'm sure you could think of some. And I'd say that most stories don't make it under the show. In fact, the emails is where most of the vetting for Otherworld takes place. So there's good stories and there's bad stories.

But then other times, there's this third type of story. And that type is an email where right away, there's a detail to it that is so ridiculous that I probably should eliminate it right away. It should disqualify it from being an Otherworld episode because it's just kind of an element that's absurd, silly, and just distracting. Something that I think even if it was very scary, it might just kind of ruin the story. But occasionally, there's a story like that with a detail that is so silly that I actually become more interested in it. Even if it's just personal curiosity where I want to get on the phone with a person and hear the story for myself just for my own entertainment.

And today's episode is one of those stories, or at least it started off that way. It came to me from a person named Rosie who emailed me and said that she thinks, her and her friends accidentally summoned a malevolent spirit of some kind while watching a Netflix show. And not just any Netflix show, they were watching the show Goop Labs. If you don't know what that is, this is a show created by Gwyneth Paltrow, the actress. And it's the TV show version of her very famous wellness empire known as Goop. And Goop is famous for a lot of reasons, but none of those reasons are anything that would make me think watching the show could summon some kind of evil entity. I mean, I've never heard of anything like that.

You know, people have a lot of opinions about Guineath Paltrow and her wellness empire. But as far as I know, none of those opinions, good or bad, involve anything relating to malevolent spirit. or demons. And the subject line of this email was Goop Demon. But of course, I became curious. And at the very least, I wanted to hear this story for myself just for my own entertainment.

So I set up an interview, and I'm very glad I did because the story ended up being not as absurd as I thought. And I think you'll understand why once you listen. So let's get the episode. started. The title of this episode is The Goop Demon and you're listening to Otherworld. Yeah, let us know when you're ready. Okay, okay.

This is a story about... I am Rosie. I'm currently a librarian in Los Angeles and I've recently moved from Washington, D.C., where I pretty much was born and raised, born in Alexandria, Virginia. My parents did the government thing. Most of my friends are variations of government or lawyers or nonprofit people, which is like, so this was the group that when I wrote with this story, I would say like the funniest people I have ever met, but like not particularly a group that you would expect anything that unusual to happen to.

In this sense, it's a pretty wholesome group, I would say. When this whole thing happened, living in D.C., I was living in the Bloomingdale neighborhood. I biked everywhere. I had dreams of becoming a librarian. So I was in the process of applying to the library school in the D.C. area. And my friend group, we all started doing improv comedy together, just mostly to make friends. And great success. It's a very just, yeah, it's a very, I would say when people do improv in like New York or L.A., there's like higher goals versus in D.C. It's just like, yeah, it's lovely people trying to like make friends. And I just met this group of people who I fell in love with, like head over heels, like wanted to spend, and still want to spend all of my time with them. My dear friend from college, the two of us kind of took a level one improv class together. And then we just met all of these. people with it. And so it started out of we, like this is literally up to weeks before the pandemic

even, we were doing weekly movie nights where we would either watch like an episode from a TV show or we'd watch a movie. And we actually usually would watch a scary movie. I think it was like, we all were like, we didn't, we would get scared if we were by ourselves, but we felt stronger and more confident as a group together. And so leading into this particular weekend, and we'd gone a few weeks without seeing one another, which has been so long in our book. And so we just wanted to catch up. And I think when I was looking at my old calendar mark

of like, what did I have for us that we were supposed to be watching? I think I put scary movie question mark. And we ended up not doing that. We put on the Gwyneth Paltrow Goop Channel. For people who aren't familiar with the Goop Channel, gosh, where do I even begin how to describe it? It's so silly. It's like there's episodes on like, I mean, it's like on the surface level.

I feel like this should be a good thing. It's like on like health care and self-care and like love your vagina and things like that. But yeah, some of the episodes are so bizarre that like and there's just like so much pseudoscience and it's a riot to watch. So we really put it on as a joke as something that we're like, oh my gosh, L-O-L. I think it had just come out. And we're like, we can just talk over it and catch up while the Goop channel's on. And like the vagina candle episode, I think was one of that. Like, it is ridiculous.

Some of the topics. But then we get to like episode three or four, which was all about energy healing. And in the show, they basically, like, Gwenith has an energy healer come in. And she has all this, like, group of people. And there's one like super skeptic who's like, I don't want to do this. they're like, you have to do this. And so they make each person in the group take turns, standing in the middle, and the whole group will stand around them and put their hands up. And like the instructor is like, you have to like think good thoughts and like good, good energy

will come over this person. And we are all watching this first laughing. We're like, this show is ridiculous. But then someone in the improv brain mindset was like, guys, we have to try this. This is so dumb. Like we have to try this. Granted, again, this is like a lawyer, someone who works for the government, all these, like, it's just like this, the group makeup is very funny for all these adults. So we're like, yeah, let's do an energy circle. So we all stand up. And so basically what you're supposed to do is like everyone stands in a circle. Someone stands in the middle. Everyone holds up their hands, like palms face forward towards the person. And I guess close your eyes and you're supposed to like think good thoughts or think good vibes towards the person.

And it's kind of like, I guess, like a happy meditation thing. Like just like, I think, when I was doing it for the other people in the circle, I was just thinking like, I like this person. I hope they're well. And I just kept like almost repeating that. Like, I really like this person. I hope they're well. We never had much more directive.

This show, obviously, what, I mean, it's just like clips of like, they weren't trying to like lead an audience in a ceremony like this. So very much it feels the equivalent of like people open a Ouija board. And they go, oh, this would be so fun. Like, let's just like mess around. And that's kind of like, I guess, because it felt just very innocent. And it was like, oh, this is such a positive thing.

I never, like, I didn't feel like ill will being sent towards me when I was in the middle. And same for vice versa. But I think the goal, yeah, was supposed to be just, like, thinking good thoughts towards whoever this, like, energy was directed towards. We're, you know, jumping in and out of the circle and we're, like, giggling and laughing and cajoling each other. And at one point one guy in the group goes, hey, guys, like, let's just do this, like, for real, like, one round. and then we can like, honestly just put off, turn off the channel and like go home. Like this has been ridiculous, but like let's just try it once. And at that point, that was my turn to stand in the middle.

So we stand in the middle. Everyone actually gets quiet and we're quiet for like two full minutes, or at least it felt like it was like we've been doing like a few seconds per person. Everyone stopped laughing. Everyone put up their hands. And I remember closing my eyes and like feeling warm, like almost like tingly warm. And that might have truly just been from. like standing in the middle of like warm bodies.

This was March 1st, 2020. So like I did feel like I noticed a change in like the kind of more chillier temperatures, but who knows? In my mind, I was like, oh, it's just because everyone's being quiet and I'm now noticing like all these bodies. But after about two minutes, I remember thinking like, okay, I feel like we've done it. It was like a collective, like, we've given this some time. And I open my eyes and I start to like move forward.

And the two, there were two dogs in the room who were my. friend's dogs who was hosting us and the dogs just freak out and the girl who I was standing in front of who was facing me they just attack her they like fully like jump on her and are barking and like I mean like truly like they like freak out on her and they'd been super chill this whole time they'd been like they're very nice dogs very sweet-tempered um we all freak out we're so shocked that this happens she starts screaming because there's like these two dogs on her and we like pull the dogs off and the owner's like apologizing and she's like I've never seen them do that before that's so strange and we were like oh ha ha ha like goop demon like the goop demon got you um but we were like you know whatever like it was

just we were a little bit unsettled but then we like laughed it off afterwards and so that night her and i both bike home because we didn't live that far away and the next day i remember it being a really busy week at work so like our group text was normally like pretty crazy and in the next morning she's texting us all being like, guys, dogs are really acting weird around me. And I was like, in my mind, I was like, oh, this is a silly bit that she's like playing up the goop demon thing. And we're all in the text group being like, good demons got you. And it wasn't until later that when we like, she started texting me separately being like, this is not a joke. I'm really freaked out. I don't even know if I've said her name yet, Kelsey. So my friend Kelsey, this is the one who the

dog that attacked. She is doing yoga at the time. She gets up at like five or six in the morning and bikes to yoga every day. And on her bike right over to the studio, these dogs are just like going out of their way to like bark at her. Like, you know, dogs bark. Like that's not unusual. But like they're going. They're like leaning away from their leashes.

And like she's just getting a lot of weird attention from dogs. And in her mind, she's like, oh, I'm just unsettled from last night. Nothing that weird. She goes into her yoga class, which is on the first floor. And it's floor to ceiling windows. And she's practicing at the front. and she says that this dog just randomly attacks the window. Like she's staying, like her face is very close to the window and it goes out of its way to attack her specifically.

And that she's practiced there for ages. That's never happened before. So again, one of those things of like, none of these incidents would have really caught anyone's attention, but she's like added up together. So she's naturally kind of freaked out. And she's like, what's going? Why do dogs hate me all of a sudden? And meanwhile, while she's texting as this, we're just making fun of her because we're like, Oh my gosh, this is so funny.

Bubble block is we don't really, we truly think it's a joke. Okay, so Ibernant Kelsey, we met each other freshman year in college. I would say she's just like a very, A, an amazing person, just so fine and like full of life. But I would say we've never had any sort of like spooky talk or weird. But that being said, she is someone who I feel like is sensitive. not in like, oh, these people hurt my feelings, but I feel like she's sensitive and in tuned with, like, how other people feel. Like, she's my friend who if I'm having a bad day, she'll randomly text me and being like, how are you? And I'll be like, how did she know that I needed exactly that?

And she's just like this with a lot of people. And so, yeah, so in any case, that Tuesday night now the same week, she starts texting me separately, being like, like, I think someone visited me last night in my bedroom. And I woke up and there was a woman there and we had a conversation. And so while she's texting me this, I'm at this like comedy venue in D.C. I get this random voicemail call, like in the middle of while she's telling the story. And, you know, like that's a normal thing. We get that all the time. And when I listen to the voicemail, it was just a woman in this like very strange voice going, hello. And I thought, like, that's kind of weird.

And, you know, obviously it could have been a telemarketer. But the sound of it was really strange, the timing of it. As with everything else in the story, it was just all the pieces together of like, oh, that's weird. I didn't get like a, hello, this is your prescription or, you know, whatever. So in any case, that happens right then. And I was like, listen, Kelsey, I'm going to bike home. And then can we just, like, have a phone call and just tell me what happened.

So, like, she's halfway through just being like, oh, we had a. a conversation. I bike home. I get into my old apartment. I'm in this like 100 year old row house building in D.C. And I call her and I was like, okay, tell me what happened. And she starts the story all over again. And she goes, okay, so last night a woman visited me. And as soon as she gets to that part, all the lights in my room turn off. Like everything turns off except for the TV. So my TV is on. Everything's plugged into the same. But it's not just like one light burned out. I had a hair straightener. in because I had a thing the next day. So I had a hair straightener and two lamps.

The three of those all in the same strip turned off. And I was like, oh, that's weird. I guess I'm having a power outage. And normally, so like the way our row house worked at this particular one, sometimes the lights would just all turn off. Like the power would go out and it would go out in the whole front of the building and you had to like flip the switch. But for this, it was literally just the lance turned off.

So I went down to our basement, which was very creepy. while she was still telling me the story. And I like flipped the switch on the breaker. And, like, my room seemed fine. The lamps turned back on. Actually, no, that's a lie. The lamps never turned back on again. Both of them short-circuited at the same time. But my TV stayed on. The hair straightener came back on. The socket worked. But at that point, I was really freaked out. And so I was like, I'm going to have to pause your story, girl. I got to get out of this apartment. I don't, I feel really strange. And so I go to a friend's house that night and I sleep on their couch.

And then the next day I wake up feeling like the biggest idiot. I was like, she had a bad dream. I'm sure the lights all just turned off randomly for no reason. That random call with the creepy voicemail. I'm like, I'm sure that's just a telemarkerner. It got cut off, whatever. Like, this is all very normal. I just feel like a big dummy.

And I go back to my apartment. And I think on the way there, I literally stepped at some random, like, department store. And just to make myself feel better, I bought sage because I had heard somewhere like, oh, if you sage your room, it'll make things better. And so I don't know what I'm doing. I just kind of wiggle it around my room. And I go, fine. There's nothing going on. But now I can say, now if I wake up, I can be like, I sage my room.

I should be fine without doing any research. And then so that night, I go to bed. And I wake up at like 2 a.m. And I only notice the time because I think like when you wake up sometimes and it's like really early and you're like, oh, should I go back to bed or not? I remember it being like right at the time of like, oh, I'm definitely going to go back to bed. My room look normal. Whatever. I go to sleep. And I start having this dream where I'm in like, it's like an action movie. Like there's like explosions all over the place. And I'm like a character in a movie who's like close. climbing through rubble and I'm looking for someone and I'm like really trying to find this person. And like I'm in the dream saying like, where are you? Where are you? And then suddenly the dream starts changing. And I'm like being sucked out of the dream and into my bedroom. So I'm not in a pile of rubble.

I'm like looking at my bedroom door and I'm not saying where are you. I'm saying what do you want? And I'm like repeating it. Like I can feel my jaw moving. I'm like going, what do you want? And then I hear a person. who like in the dream I'm like looking for someone but there's then there's a woman and I don't even see her but I like have this like feeling of there's a person there in front of me and I hear in my

left ear which is on the side of my door of her going I want to be here in the night and I audibly hear the words in the night and it sounds like a whispery like and like it has like at the end right then my bedroom door swings open and crashes into the like wall um as a I'm hearing these words and I am fully awake. I'm sitting up in bed. It's, I think at this point, 3 a.m. And I'm just like, oh, my God, there was someone in my room. Like, not even a ghost, but I was like, there is a person in my room and they just told me they want to be here at night, like in the night. And I am so freaked out. I obviously don't go to bed the rest of the night. And I'm like, at that point now, so like by the morning time, I'm texting Kelsey again being like, I need to hear the rest of your story because like I just had the craziest dream or not dream. I'm not totally sure. And so now flash forward to Friday, we meet, we're going to another comedy show and we're like, we have to get drinks beforehand and just like talk out. No, no electronics interruptions, no things turning off, whatever. And so I,

I start telling her my dream first because she hasn't actually yet told me like what her dream was about other than someone visited her. And so was it a dream? Was it a? I don't know. I mean, the dream, the actual dream part was like the action movie, which was just like any typical weird dreamer just like things are moving around. But the non-dream part, like I was awake and someone talked to me and I like answered my question that I had asked to them. So that you were awake when you heard the voice.

Yeah. Yeah, exactly. And the door flew open. You saw it. Yes, it flew open and it hit the, and even I had a roommate at the time who lived in the door right next to me. And he was like, oh, I even heard when your door open. I remember it because he's like, I woke up hearing that noise. And so again, it's like one of those things if someone could be like, oh, isn't it? Like, I forget what the term of like you're hearing things as you're dreaming or something. So even that, I had convinced myself. going into meeting Kelsey that I was like, it must have been a crazy dream. We're really crazy timing with this door thing. And so then I started telling her what I had heard. I was like in the night. And that's when she freaks out.

Like I think we'd both been telling ourselves separately, like, I'm overthinking this. I'm having these crazy dreams. I'm just over. I'm creating this goop demon thing in my head. And that's when she goes, Rosie, the night that I saw it, which was the night before, the conversation that they'd had together was the two of them, I guess, were just like talking. Kelsey was like, you can be here, but I just don't want you here at night. And the woman was like, I want to be here at night.

And she's like, you cannot be here at night. And so the very next night, I'm like, what do you want? And the thing that I hear back is I want to be here at night. Like, I want to be here in the night. And so that for me was like the, oh, shit. Like all of the parts of where I and both of us had been like, it's, just a dream. Like, it's just dogs being weird that I'm, like, overly focused on. But when we had dreams that connected without even realizing it, we were like, oh, my God, like, what is going on?

We called another girl that we know who says her, I mean, like, I fully believe this, but she's like, I'm from a family of psychics. And because we were like, we have no idea what to do. Like, do we call a priest? Do we watch the next episode of Goop? Like, how do we turn this off? Like, we had no idea. And so this girl, what she recommended us to do is she's like, yeah, in doing this thing, you invited somebody in. Don't know who this is, but you've invited someone in.

And you need to just politely ask them to leave and, like, go around to all the corners of your room and all of the, like, entry points to like windows, doors and just say, like, please respectfully, I'm asking you to leave. And so the next day I spent like pretty much all of Saturday, like redoing it almost like ritualistically like again and again, like please leave like respectfully. I don't want to be unkind, but please leave. I don't want you here like at all. And then we've never had issues since.

It is the most insane. I truly, yeah, I have no idea. Like, in the fact that where it came from, I'm like, this is so dumb. It's like origin. Did either of you see it? I think she did see someone. She described, like when we were talking at the end of the week, she described clothing. But for me, I never saw someone.

I would say, like, I sensed in my, because it was maybe part of like when I was dreaming. I was looking for an older woman. And to me, it almost felt like I was talking to an older woman, almost like my grandmother. It wasn't my grandmother. I definitely don't feel that. They were also both still alive at the time. But it felt like, yeah, I don't know. And even when she, because I felt like it was a she left by room, it kind of felt like when I would get in like a fight with a grandmother.

And I would be like, I want this thing. And they're like, I don't want this thing. And they'd be frustrated and would like leave the room, like, frustrated. kind of like. So that's how it felt like. Kelsey might have more details as far as like the look and the feel of the person because I didn't get any of that. Do you think she'll talk to me? I think she would. Yeah. I will say, so for me, like, I think of now this story in like I try to like, the fact that nothing has happened that I've noticed personally, but I don't think I'm a very like sensitive person. Like, you know, like I'll do a ghost tour and not feel. like anything's followed me home kind of thing. Kelsey is like, yeah, I don't know, like, there will be times in our friend group we would bring it up and she might get a little anxious about it, understandably, because I think like it's this idea of like giving like thought

to power. Like if I talk about this person, then will they come back? Well, am I inviting something by feeding an energy or thought or whatever? But that being said, I think like, I think she would talk about it. I think at this point it's been a lot of time. She's also living. in a new house. And so what we've talked about a lot at the end of the days, neither of us felt like whoever visited us, because it felt like the same person just transferred between the two of us. It didn't feel like they meant us any harm.

It's just that they wanted to hang out. Like they just wanted to be there at night. Okay, we have to take a quick break, but we will be right back. So after hearing Rosie's story, I became very curious. And I did end up reaching out to her friends. and interviewing her. And I'm very glad I did because her perspective was a lot different than Rosie's. And she offered some context that really took the story in a slightly different direction for me.

So this is my interview with Kelsey. Yeah, absolutely. So I am not, as you say, a spooky people. I am, I work in Washington, D.C. I am an improv comedian, which has varying levels of cool. mainly lower levels of cool, but yeah, so I'm an improv comedian, I'm a teacher in Washington, D.C. I've lived here for 10 years now, graduated from college, came straight here, and what is there about me? I just, I like cats.

I have two of them, and they're a lot of fun. I grew up in the South, so I had a lot of, like, a lot of, like, religious upbringing, so a lot of, like, A lot of my important personality is, like, learning a lot about, like, spiritual, like, God and stuff like that when I was younger. And now it's definitely affected me, but I'm not really a practicing person like that now. So we were having a movie night, a group of my friends and me. Rosie was there. We kind of have a weekly movie night just to, I don't know, have a set social engagement. it. And we didn't really want to watch the movie. We just wanted to put something on to start

conversation. And it was like the week that the Goop documentary series came out on Netflix and it was the first thing up and we're like, well, we're not even going to watch. We're just going to talk. Let's put it on in the background. And we watched like one episode and then didn't really, we just talked most of it. But then we watched this energy episode where they Gwyneth Paltrow had some like energy healer in like her goop laboratory. And she had a whole bunch of her goop laboratory scientists or whatever the branded word is that they use where they, they were testing out this idea of energy movement. So they all like got together in a circle and they were instructed to. like think about the most, like, loving thing you possibly could in the entire world,

like what makes you the most happiest, how can you like harness the most love possible? And then they got in a circle, held hands, closed their eyes like that. And there was someone in the middle of the circle. And that person, after they all sent the energy at the same time, kind of lifted up a little bit and felt like some sort of sensations. and they do an interview with this person. And we thought it was ridiculous. And we are improvisers and comedians. So we're always doing bits.

So we're like, oh, why don't we do this? What else are we going to do? So we did it a few times and everyone was joking. And I don't know what made us want to take it so seriously the last time. But we were all just like, guys, no, it is, it's serious time we're going to do. We're going to get there. And I had been practicing meditation a lot recently. I had been going through a yoga teacher training, and I had a daily meditation practice.

And so I really focused on my, like, letting everything out of my brain. And then the only thing I allowed to be in my brain was just like complete love. And I was like remembering a specific memory from my childhood. And I just thought about it. And at that moment when we were all like holding our hands, Rosie was in the middle of the circle, I just, like, felt this energy push forward, like, out of me. And, like, seriously, it felt like, like, water was inside my whole body, and it just exited at once. Like, all of it was gone at once.

And at that exact moment, we were at my friend Macy's house, and she was watching two super-chill dogs that were in the corner. And those dogs just go crazy. They run up and they're like jumping up on me. They hadn't, I hadn't even really engaged them much the whole time. They were just sitting in the corner sleeping. And at that moment, they just like wouldn't stop barking at me, jumping up on me. And I'm a dog person. Well, I'm a cat person, but I'm an animal person.

But they were very upset with me in the moment. And yeah, so it kind of creeped us all out a little bit. And we just left for the night. And I remember hiding behind a car when we were walking home and like scaring a friend. because I thought it was funny how everyone was so scared. But then the next morning, I woke up and I'm, I've like convinced myself now that maybe it was lucid dreaming or something, but I don't know, the steps that followed that kind of made me think of I actually saw something there.

And it was this woman and she was standing over top of me and she looked like she was an older, like clothes. Like she was not in something that someone nowadays would wear. like it like like like a buttoned up like like almost like colonial like top with like frills and stuff like that and she had it was like a it was like a jumper dress over top it was like a gray jumper dress over top of a white like with a white button up that came all the way up like a I don't know it just reminds me of kind of like pilgrim shirts or something but not in that time definitely farther forward but she was looking at me like

what do you want? Not like I'm trying to scare you or whatever. She just looked at me like, what is it that you want? And I, I didn't say anything. I just was like looking at her. I was like, what is happening? I didn't feel really scared. And I was just like, what are you doing? Like, I like, get out of here. She didn't say anything to me. She just, like, she just stared at me in a way that like she was, it was like she was waiting for me to ask a question or something. She was like, I'm here. What do you want? Kind of thing. And then when I wasn't really reacting to her, she just walked off. And she turns around and walks out of my room, like up my bed across the side and out my door.

And it creeped me out a little bit. But, well, very much so. But I convinced myself as dreaming. I always had a lot of nightmares as a kid. So I was like, maybe this was just a dream. And I get up every morning around 5 a.m. to go to yoga in the morning. So I just got up, got dressed, got in my car, and drove to my yoga studio while it was still kind of dark outside. So I get to the, I park where I go to yoga, I walk like kind of down in neighborhood.

And every single morning at the same time, I see this man and his very old dog walking down. And it has like, it's like a dog with like full gray face. And I'm pretty sure it's deaf. And it barely, it's like barely moving down the street. That's all. can do and I'm sure it was in its last days and it never acknowledged me before because I'm pretty sure it was blind and when I walked past it this morning the dog stops in its tracks and just turns and looks up at me and like does not move just freezes staring at me and the the owner was like

come on come on like let's go and just stayed there and I was like I'm going to get out of here I just walk forward and I turn around, the dog is still staring at me. Yeah, so creep me out a lot. And again, I pushed it off as much as I possibly could, but still feeling pretty scared. And then I went to my yoga studio, and my yoga studio is on the first floor of a city block in Shaw in D.C. So it has, like, clear glass walls. So people can actually see in while you're practicing yoga, which isn't the best.

situation, but in the morning, not many people are walking by, so, you know, we get to see the sun rise. It's kind of nice. But when I walked by, when I was in the middle of my practice, I'm looking out the window and a little dog walks by and then just runs and, like, attacks the window, like, jumps up on the window, like right in front of me, like, barking, barking, and just, like, keeps, like, running into the window, like, he's trying to get in to me, and I'm the only one right there, so it's clearly going after me. And that was the most intense one, but I had a few other dogs walked by in the morning during the yoga practice and barked and looked at me. But, but like that one went nuts.

So didn't love that. I just thought about like how, I don't know, I'd watched exorcism of Emily Rose as a kid. And I thought about how like cats are involved in these kind of things and animals can see things that humans can. And I was like, oh, God, what did I do? And I went, I had to go to work. And later that night, I was by myself. I live with my partner. And I was by myself and I was texting Rosie.

And I was like, Rosie, has anything like weird happened to you since the, since like this goop experiment we did? And she said no, like, but she was biking, I think. So she, like, tried calling me. I was so scared that I didn't want to tell the ghost out loud that I was convinced it was a ghost. So I was like, I don't want to say this out loud. I'm just going to text you the story. And she calls me again, because she can't see my text, because she's biking. And while she's calling, she said she like got a, like it was an unknown number.

Something called her at the same time. And I didn't really, yeah, again, didn't know about it. Later that night, she told me that she got a voicemail with like an old woman's voicing. like hello or something like I can't do it but she sent me the video the like voicemail before and it does not sound like human or nice it feels very distorted and it's terrifying but I was again improv comedian at night I had people come over to my house and I was coaching them through practice and I told them my story and when they were leaving and I was like I don't really want to be alone right now because I'm kind of scared um one of the teammates on my team

her name or one of the improvisers on the team her name's nomacal and she was like uh-uh no like like you got a like you need to stage this place like right now and i said i was like what do i do just like order sage from amazon where do you get sage and she was like oh my god do not do that if you do not know the source of the sage do not practice that if this isn't your practice never mind don't sage the place most most spirits have boundaries and that if you just ask them to leave, they will listen to you. And I took that to heart and she also said something, and this is why I brought up the voicemail, that she said that you're not supposed to listen to voices from the other side.

It can really affect you in ways that, like, not the best choice to make if you don't want to be haunted or something like that. So I'm home at night and I just, I'm like, I'm going to listen to what Namakal said. she said that I need to just tell the spirit that they aren't allowed here. And I told her, and I said it out loud. I was like, hey, I'm okay that you're here and I'm sorry that you're here, but I just don't want you to stay with me in the night. I'm very scared in nighttime. And I just said this out loud and I just kept saying it. And I did feel like relief after that, whether it be just like myself being like, okay, I'm okay, I'm safe. The boundaries were listening. And I didn't really experience anything much after that.

And I mean, I don't want to tell Rosie side of the story you heard from her. I heard there were some things that happened between that voicemail and the Friday night that we came back together to, we were at a beer garden. So the beer garden, we were all like kind of sharing the stories with like people like, hey, this is a really funny story. And Rosie goes, yeah, oh my gosh, I saw this woman and she like entered my room and I guess Rosie screamed or something. And then the woman was like, I just need a place to stay in the night. And that's when I'm telling you that I felt like every ounce of blood came out of my body because I'm like, why would she say those exact words?

I didn't tell Rosie I said that. How did she hear the exact same thing that I told her to stay away in the night? And then Rosie was telling me that she had a lot of problems in the nighttime. And she was like sleeping at someone else's house because the night was, I don't know. It was like she had some issues with like the lights going out and her door opening and stuff. But at that moment, I just like completely like stepped back from the conversation because I'm like, this isn't just a funny story now. This is actually kind of terrifying.

And I don't want to do things like this anymore. or I would like to not mess with spirits or goop or like whatever that Gwyneth Paltrow is selling. I was like, I'm good. I'm good. I don't want this anymore. I just like want to live my life. So that's me. That's what happened.

Like I said, my biggest fear is being entered by a demon the way that Emily Rose was in that movie I watched when I was younger. So I'm like convinced that's like my biggest fear. I think it's religious upbringing and stuff like that. I know that that's not a lot of it is, yeah. But yeah, I don't want that to happen. So at least I know now that I can tell it to go, I guess. You just don't think that in the moment. You're like it's what you don't know.

You know, like I don't know about this world. This is scary. And I just assume it's bad, you know. But when it's when it actually happened to me, it didn't actually feel. scary. It just felt, I don't know, like a hang session. Like, it just felt like I just, I was meeting someone and they were just on their way and I was on mine and we both didn't want to cross paths. All right. So I obviously went into this episode thinking that it might be something silly. I didn't

even think it was going to make it on the show in the first place. But then after hearing both of their stories, I do think that something happened to these women. and it's a really weird one. It's a really weird one that I still don't quite understand. And I still don't know if what happened to them has anything to do with the Gwyneth Paltrow Netflix show. So I thought I would try to get on the phone with somebody that knows more about this than me to say if they've even heard of anything like this happening ever. And I ended up calling around quite a bit to find somebody that would have the expertise

to kind of speak on this subject, a very specific subject. And I ended up getting introduced to a person named Melinda, who's not only has experience with Reiki and Energy Healing, but also is generally a person very knowledgeable in the paranormal and all sorts of spooky things, I guess you could say. So I got on the phone with her and did my best to catch her up on this entire story and explain all of the details, just to see what she made of it.

And this is what she said. I know. Whoa. Have you ever heard of anything like that before? No, but I will tell you that watching that show, I was like, uh-oh, this is going to be damaging in some way. This is not a way that I predicted at all. I mean, I have heard of people, you know, in whatever kind of, you know, when they're working in a way. to like open themselves up and you know get into the metaphysical in some way um having something

get attached to them i used to work at a crystal shop and people came in all of the time like i have heard everything every possible way that something could get attached to you and you need help you know getting getting it out of there um i think the main thing is just and this is something that they don't go into on that show or you know in a lot of the the pop stuff now is it's the first thing that you learn, or the first thing that I learned in Reiki was how to create a boundary and how to protect myself because otherwise, you know, like, you want to help someone, but you don't want to help them by like taking in what they have going on. So I think that it sounds like, you know, these people, and I'm sure a lot of people are kind of

of opening themselves up without having the tools to have that energetic boundary. Wow. That's interesting. And also, one thing I forgot to mention, too, is dogs were going crazy, attacking one girl specifically for like a day or two after. And the dogs had previously liked this person? Yeah, but it's all. dogs, like many dogs on the street.

What? Yeah. That's wild. I mean, like I said, I've heard crazy stuff. And I, and here's my thing, too, is like, as I get asked, like, but is it real? Like, well, it's real for them. It's real for her. You know, she's walking around having dogs, like, try to attack her. That's a very real experience. And to me, it's like, however that happened, whether it's really like the ghost of an old woman attaching themselves or something else or, you know, something that kind of shifted within her that made her give off a different vibe to the dogs, like, whatever it is, it's still something that, you know, is a terrible experience that that needs to be taken care of. I haven't seen that episode, honestly, in a while. I don't remember them doing anything weird in it. And I think from what these girls described, it sounds like they has gotten a circle and sent positive vibes to each other. You know?

Yeah. Yeah. And that's great. But still, it's not, they didn't, they got in a circle and sent positive vibes to each other. They didn't get in a circle and cast a circle and do a ritual to put up a wall around it. and, you know, like that, like, pouring a circle of salt around and stuff that you see in movies, like, that's, that's there for a reason. You know, people, people do that for a reason.

And even, you know, I can't remember on that episode, if they show it or not, but, you know, when I've gone in to get energy healing or go see a shaman or whatever, like, they do a lot of, like, clearing and, protection work before they even start the session. And it's not because they're going to go in and try to do something evil. You know, it is, in its most simple terms, like sending positive vibes. But you still have to seal up that area and protect yourself. Oh my God, this poor, it would break my heart if I walked around and all of a sudden dogs didn't like me. That sounds like the worst outcome possible. What do you think people should know at home that these people in the story didn't know, possibly?

That the very first thing that you do and that you learn to do before you get into any of this stuff is how to create an energetic barrier, how to protect your energy, and how to clear your own energy. Because those people, like professional people, too, they do all that clearing in the beginning. And once you leave, they're doing it again. When I read for clients, I'm doing it, you know, before they get there during the session and afterwards. So that's what I wish that that people knew is, you know, it's like, it's all fun in games until somebody catches a demon. You know, It's like you got to, it's really serious, serious stuff that, that clearly, you know, based on this story and Bonnie's story and a lot of people's stories, like, it sucks when it goes wrong. How do you protect yourself?

There are, I mean, there's a lot of different ways that you can do it. There's, you know, like big ritualistic, you know, what we call high magic ways to do it. You can, you know, there are herbs to burn. White Sage is problematic because it's being like way overharvested. But you can get sprays that are made for it as well. A really simple way is to just do visualizations too. Like if they, so in this situation, right? And they're just like doing it for funsies and then like, okay, let's do it for real. So I would say instead of going right into it, like, okay, so everybody sit individually, close your eyes and visualize a beam of like pure white light coming down from the universe, from the sky, into your head, filling your body, and then going down out of your body down through the floor.

so that there's this, it's sort of like this clearing light. And then, since they're all together, then once everybody does that, then everybody hold hands, do it again, and visualize like, okay, this circle around this person that we're going to send the vibes to, like, first we're going to fill this circle with this bright white light. And just saying out loud, only beings operating with. Best intentions and highest light are welcome here. And weirdly, they listen, you know?

Like, we're the ones in bodies. So they, you know, they're on, they're on our turf here in the earthly plains. So just saying stuff out loud like that will be a big, big help. This is a lot. A lot of people don't think about this before they watch Goop. Be careful. I did no idea. Don't drink and vibe. Yeah. Also, you know, don't like go to an energy healer, but also like go to a psychiatrist.

You know what I mean? That's the other thing with that show that really, like, you still need all of your other doctors. Don't think that it's going to be your cure all for everything. All right. That brings us to the end of this episode. I want to thank Rosie and Kelsey for telling us their story. and I also want to thank Melinda for coming in and offering her perspective. That brings us to the end of this episode. This has been The Goop Demon, and you've been listening to Otherworld. Otherworld is executive produced and hosted by myself, Jack Wagner. Our theme song is by Cobra Man.

The soundtrack of this episode is by Juice Jackal and North Americans. Editing and Engineering by Theo Schaefer. The artwork for our show is by Coldestack Studios. This is an independent show, so please show us your support by subscribing, leaving a five-star review, and telling your friends. If you want to hear more episodes and support the show, you could do so at patreon.com slash otherworld. If you want to follow us on social media, we're at OtherworldPod on Instagram and Twitter.

And finally, if you or somebody you know has experienced something paranormal, supernatural, or unexplained, you could send us that story at Stories at Otherworldpod.com.