The Confessionals - RELOADED | 84: Occult To Missionary

Episode Date: August 4, 2025

Tonight, Scott comes on to share about his life growing up with a mother dabbling in the occult and how that affected him and his family. He discusses playing with ouija boards and what happened in those moments. Then he transitions to more modern times where he is a Christian and doing overseas missions trips. He talks about seeing demonically possessed people and walks thought those situations! Please pray for Tony's wife, Lindsay, as she battles breast cancer. Your prayers make a difference!If you’re able, consider helping the Merkel family with medical expenses by donating to Lindsay’s GoFundMe: https://gofund.me/b8f76890Become a member for ad-free listening, extra shows, and exclusive access to our social media app: theconfessionalspodcast.com/joinThe Confessionals Social Network App:Apple Store: https://apple.co/3UxhPrhGoogle Play: https://bit.ly/43mk8kZTony's Recommended Reads: slingshotlibrary.comGet your ticket for the NEW documentary premiering July 27, 2025 @ 8PM EST: "The Meadow Project"Ticket link HERE: moment.co/themeadowprojectMy New YouTube ChannelMerkel IRL: @merkelIRLMy First Sermon: Unseen BattlesSasquatch and The Missing Man: merkelfilms.comMerkel Media Apparel: merkmerch.comSPONSORSSIMPLISAFE TODAY: simplisafe.com/confessionalsGHOSTBED: GhostBed.com/tonyCONNECT WITH USWebsite: www.theconfessionalspodcast.comEmail: [e-mail] ADDRESS:Merkel Media257 N. Calderwood St., #301Alcoa, TN 37701SOCIAL MEDIASubscribe to our YouTube: https://bit.ly/2TlREaIReddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/theconfessionals/Discord: https://discord.gg/KDn4D2uw7hShow Instagram: theconfessionalspodcastTony's Instagram: tonymerkelofficialFacebook: www.facebook.com/TheConfessionalsPodcasTwitter: @TConfessionalsTony's Twitter: @tony_merkelProduced by: @jack_theproducer

Merkel Media I guess it's time to go back in time Are you telling me you built a time machine kind of a Dolorean Time is but a stubborn

illusion I have a lot of memories of the past people are time traveling within themselves Time travel is possible This was all circulating

around the base that a giant had been killed but no one was supposed to talk about it. Reach up underneath the door, curl up to grab it, and then disappear. When he came over to me, dude, he slithered over to me. And this giant comes out of the cave and they're all frozen. And he starts running and firing up this giant. With a giant move, he's got a spear in one hand and he's running really fast and spears, Dan holds him up like this. Somebody else, shoot him in the face, shoot him in the face.

They basically decapitated. Person, when he got about 15 yards away from me. Something pulling at my leg. And I look over and there are two small gray entities pulling it. And they're literally, I'm getting pulled off the bed. I reached my hand into this bush and I touch air. Couldn't breathe and I couldn't move because I know I'm seeing a monster. Okay, I reload it.

Yep. Welcome to the show, everybody. You're listening to The Confessionals. I am your host, Tony Merkel, and thank you for being here. If you've had an encounter or a story you'd like to share with me on the show, go ahead and shoot me that email. Hit the connection section, and you can reach me that way as well. Either way it works for me, just get a hold of me. So I want to let everybody know that we are moving our platform from Blog Talk Radio to Revolver podcast.

I'm very excited about this move. It's going to be a great move for the show. show, more exposure, including things like we're going to be put on IHeart Radio, Spotify, and other platforms that we didn't have access to before as well. So I'm really excited about it. And I just want to let everybody know we are on Revolver podcast as of right now. And I'm very excited about it. Now, this week we have Scott coming on. And Scott actually was raised with the mother who dabbled with the occult. And he talks about his paranormal experiences that he had when he was a kid. And as he got older, became a Christian and now does overseas missions

trips. And he talks about a lot of the supernatural and paranormal things that he has seen overseas. Today's going to be a great show. So sit back and relax, and we're going to get into it right after this. All right. Tonight I have a good guest coming on. Scott and Scott, how are you doing, man? Man, I'm doing good. Thank you for having me on the show. Absolutely, man. So I got your email, I think it was just a few weeks ago, actually, and I wanted to bump you up in the schedule of recording just because I know with what you do with traveling with missions and things like that, you know, it's going to be hard for you to plan out months in advance to come on the show and get interviewed. So I wanted to, you know, bump you up to now. And I'm glad we did because you got

some good information to share with people about your experiences. And it all kind of starts with you as a kid being raised by your mom and your mom dabbling in the occult and things like that. So why don't you just kind of walk us into, you know, how that whole environment was and, you know, what had happened? Yeah, no problem. I appreciate it. Again, like I said, I appreciate you having me on the show. Yeah, my mom and my dad, my dad recently passed away in November, but my mom and dad, they were great people. And my mom just had a real interest in the occult, I guess you'd say.

She was really into psychic affairs and Ouija boards and just constantly watching scary shows, about those stories, things that happened, like to her family and things like that. And so as a child, you know, from like, I don't know, seven to roughly 10, 11, 12 years old, this is, this is a normal thing, you know. It was just a constant thing. It's not like she drank blood or anything weird like that or did any sacrifice. But she was just into that stuff big time. I remember one time we went to a psychic fair here in town, and it was at a hotel somewhere

over by the airport, and there was just a lot of different people there, you know, with crystals and all the different things you'd see and something like that. And I went and it was just kind of a weird experience as a kid. But her experience kind of slowed into the house I was raised in. We bought this house when I was about four years old over, And there's an old part of Tulsa called Red Fork. And Red Fork is like one of the first communities that Tulsa that was started in the Tulsa area. And Tulsa was an oil town.

I mean, that's why we were founded was because of oil. But the house that I grew up in was in Red Fork. And it was one of the oldest houses in Red Fork. And this particular house started as a one-room shack. and the stories that I've heard, I can't confirm these stories, but some of the things I've heard is that it was a railroad track, just a couple blocks from the house. And some people said it was a place where the guys that were working on the railroad road would come and stay. And then other people said it was a house that the, like the oil workers in the beginning when they struck oil in Red Fork. They would stay there.

But regardless, you could see, like when you went into the attic of this house, you could see the original roof, and the rest of the house was built around this house. You could see a little chimney coming out of the roof when you're in the attic. So the house over the years had had many rooms built around it. And it was just a really old house. And when my mom and dad got ready to spell that house in 03, it was. We had it from like 70-something to 03. One of the things they had to do was replace the dining room floor.

And they were tearing up the floor. And my brother calls me and he's like, hey, you got to come over here, man. And I was like, why? He said, just come over here now. And so I go there and it was a crawl space house. And so he said, go over. There was a living room and you went into this hallway. And he said, go into that hallway.

And I was just walking on the raskers looking. down at the ground, you know, it's like probably two or three feet. I don't know from where the floor was to the ground. As I got closer to this hallway, there were stairs. And I'm like, what in the world? And he goes, go down there. And I go, I ain't going down. He goes, go down there. I went down there. My little brother, T. and I came. And so I go between the rasters and I go down these stairs. And you went down probably about eight feet. And it kind of turned into this big oval cement room. And this room was just full of crickets.

I remember there was crickets all over the plane. But there were also little medicine bottles, like little, like from the turn of last century. You know, you'd seen glass, florx bottles to, like bleach bottles. We could see some those. And anyway, they wound up covering up, fell in the house. And I'm going to come back to that here in a minute. I have kind of theory about that room. but I don't know if it was like a root seller, you know,

and it kept stuff underground when it was an original one-room shack. I don't know. But anyway, in this old house, there was a lot of strange things that would happen. I mean, you would, my mom had things happen. One particular story I can think of for my mom is that it was right around Fourth of July. She was in her room sleeping, and I guess my dad would to work or something like that. But she said a guy came into her room, and this guy was, it was like, it was like light dawn. It was like, you know, it's still kind of dark, but the light starting to come into the room from the sun.

And this guy comes into the room, and she said she turned. She didn't get a weird feeling from him. She just felt like it was, she felt like it was one of her uncles. who had passed on many years before. But she couldn't really, she said he kind of had like a trench coat. You couldn't really see an outland. It wasn't like a complete black ass or anything like that.

And she said the guy told her, he goes, you know, Bob is going to have artifacts. Now Bob was like that grandfather. And that's time. And anyway, she said it was not a scary thing. It was just one of those things. And she just went about her business. She told my dad.

And anyway, about a week later, my step-grandfather did and do you have heart attack. He lived through that one. But just things like that. Something that happened to me in the house is I was probably about six years old. And, you know, you can chalk this up to being a kid or whatever. But I was laying in bed one night. And it was probably about three or four in the morning.

and I was just kind of, you know, woke up. And me and my little brother used to sleep in the, it was a two-room house. And me and my brother, who's two years younger than me, we'd shared that room. And I remember waking up and just kind of looking towards the door that went down the hallway into the kitchen. And as I was looking at this door, I could see this lady. You could see some features. I mean, I could see her hair. She had longer hair.

It was more of a... She was wearing kind of like a night... I don't know if it was a nightgown or what, but she kind of had like... It's almost like a sash was around her chest area. And I just remember absolutely freaking out. You know, I saw her.

I took off screaming. And I remember running right through. I remember as I was running through her. And I remember looking back, and I could see her kind of turn. And anyway, after that, I didn't catch any side of her, and I ran straight to my mom and dad's room screaming. I mean, it just caused emotion and I wound up sleeping in that room that night with my dad and my mom wouldn't sleep with my little brother because I had completely just freaked everybody out that night. But that was one incident that happened in that house. another incident that happened.

My dad was very skeptical. He was a very skeptical. He was a very skeptical guy. And he didn't take any of the stuff my mom talked about serious at all. I mean, he would laugh about it, joke about it and that kind of thing. Well, there was an incident that happened to him that I found out in 03 when they were covering up that room I was talking about earlier in the story. And there was one night when he was going into the bedroom to go to bed, and he walked into the room, stepped back out, and then walked back into the room and got into bed. And my mom was in bed.

She said, why did you do that? And he was kind of startled. And he said that there was a lady. He thought it was my mom. My dad had pretty bad eyesight. But he thought it was my mom. and he walked, stepped out so she could pass and go to the bathroom, and he watched her walk down the hallway and disappear around the corner,

and then he went back into the room. Well, later on, my dad said that it's quite the coincidence that that room under the house was directly in that same area where he saw a lady that night. and so for him it was it was kind of weird so my mom like I said she experienced a lot of things I don't know if it was just because she opened doors with the cult or whatever

but she did have an experience and I remember she told me about my little brother my other little brother but there's three of us three boys he was about nine years younger than me but one day she was doing dishes in the kitchen And she said she could hear my little brother,

and literally I'm just talking away to somebody. And he turned bounding into the dining room, which was open to the kitchen there. And she had her back to him. And she just turned around. And she turned around. She saw this big figure behind my little brother. And she said she kind of looked straight ahead again and turned back around,

and it was gone. Wow. So she had that experience in that house. One thing that me and my brother, who's two years younger than me, we still talk about nobody else in the family remembers but us. We used to go to my aunt-uncles every Saturday night. All my mom's brothers and sisters would meet together and all the grown-ups and hang out and all the kids go play. And one Saturday night, we went to my aunt's house, and we came back. we'd usually come back to about midnight.

And I remember me and my brother, we go into that bedroom where we stayed, and there was, you know, it was an antibiotic, a moxia filling. You know, that antibiotic that kids take when they're sick and stuff like that. Yeah. There was a bottle of it in our room.

And anyway, when we got home, there was medicine splashed all over the wall, like in a pretty particular line. And it was really weird. It was almost like it was there was writing or tried, somebody tried to do something with writing or musical notes. It wasn't just like splashes. It was like it was intentional.

And I remember me and my brother were just like freaked out because of that situation. And like I said, nobody else in the family remembers that happening at all, except for me and him. And anyway, that was. It was pretty strange, and I don't know if something was trying to communicate or I don't know. It was just a really strange situation. Yeah, especially looking back at it with, you know, hindsight, knowing that you found that room underneath with all those, like, medicine bottles and things like that. It's kind of weird, you know?

Yeah, no doubt. There was one more incident in that house that happened. I was probably about 12 years old. my other little brother was about 10 and my my littlest brother was two and we were staying you know mom would just say watch your little brother

while I worked during the day it wasn't a big deal that was just you know I was part of it back then and one day it was the afternoon when we were watching TV in the living room and all of a sudden we heard all this commotion in the room in our room

towards the back of the house and it sounded like Things were falling and banging, and keep in mind, we didn't have any pets at all. We had no dogs. We had no cat inside the house. And anyway, I thought it was an intruder. I didn't know. So I took off.

We all took off out the front door and went across the street to a friend's house. And his mom was there, but she was older. It was actually, I think his grandma that took care of him, but it wasn't much she could do for us. But anyway, we went across the street. And as we were there, it was like you could, you know, we looked across the street and we were probably about 25 yards from the house. And there was a big picture window in the front. And you could see like the outline of something, it was like a, like a, it was almost like it was a, somebody was just looking with their head, like, you know, how like a snob looking, you know, from their nose. like from their nose, you know, they're looking down at you, that kind of thing.

And we could kind of see that kind of a shadowy looking figure in the window. And then it was gone. And I remember all of us saw it. And later on, we had the neighbor, when he got home, my next door neighbor, he went through the house for us. And there was a ton of stuff that had fallen off the shelf in our bedroom. And I don't know. I don't, I didn't, it didn't look like anybody came through the back door. It just like stuff fell off the shelf for some reason.

And, and so anyway, that was, that's pretty intense for us as little kids. Yeah, for sure. I mean, with that, with that story that you just shared and stuff, I mean, what's the chances of somebody, you know, intruding into your house just to knock things off the shelf and not steal anything? I mean, nothing was stolen, right? No. They just knock stuff off this. These shells on the wall. That's it.

That's all they did. All whatever did. And like I said, we had no pets inside the house all. We had no animals at all. So. But anyway, moving on, I was probably junior high, 13, 14, 15, somewhere in there. And, you know, mom would leave for the day to work and dad worked. And our house just became like a magnet for everybody.

to come to and just to get freaked out because they knew stories about what I'd tell them about what my mom would tell me and things like that. So I remember being a kid and having all these kids in the neighborhood and they'd want to do like taeonsos and stuff in the house. Wow. And I remember just freaking them out. You know, I don't remember anything like weird happening at that moment, but it was just because of all that had happened before that I would tell them about my mom's stories and stuff. So they all wanted to come over to the house and get freaked out and that kind of thing. Like I said, I would just, I would just joke around many times. But anyway, sometime in that time frame, my mom wound up making her own Ouija board. And what she did was she found like an old piece of wood. And then she had like a wood burning kit of some kind, you know, the knife or whatever it is. And so she burned. And so she burned. the letters and the numbers and all that, like you'd see on one of the game things you could buy in the toy store

type Ouija board, but she made her own. And when the Ouija board entered the picture, and I got into my early teens, that's when things just really started to change. It went to a different type level. And so I remember all my friends would come over and you'd play with the Ouija board and things like that, And, you know, for a long time, nothing really happened.

I mean, it was just a bunch of kids that would freak each other out and just play around with it like that. But then it just slowly started changing. And I remember it became more of like an obsession. You know what I mean? It became kind of a just a darkness type situation that just I had to do it all the time. And my cousins, there were some particular cousins that I had on my mom's side that were into it too. And we were all guys. But I remember one Fourth of July, we were at an aunt's house, you know, celebrating Fourth of July.

And we had brought the Ouija board over because, like I said, some of them were into it. I had a couple of, I had one uncle that was a Christian and he wouldn't go anywhere near it. but I remember we were in this back bedroom and we were playing on this Ouija board and there was like, you know, there's probably five or six of us teenagers around it. And even our parents were were Pyrenean watching. And I remember my dad was there. And like I said before, my dad was pretty skeptical of that kind of stuff. But we were playing around and it was just doing the same old thing, you know, just answering little things here and there. And at one point, we asked the name.

And she said her name was Anna. And we just started communicating with her. And I remember my dad walked into the room. And this Ouija board started going nuts. I mean, it was like freaking out, like spelling all kinds of curse words and just all kinds of stuff. And I remember it finally kind of went, got, we, it's not like, We got control of it, but it's like it calmed down a little bit. And we asked the board, we're like, what's going on?

You know, what happened? And she goes, he killed my sister. And we're like, what? And then she just started, she started naming cities in Vietnam. And we were like, you know, cities we couldn't even name. And I remember looking at my dad and he just kind of laughed and walked out of the room. And my dad was a Vietnam vet. And there was some situations.

My dad won the Silver Star, which at the time was the second highest you could win because of some of the things he had to do as far as protecting. One time his carrier group got ambushed and he wound up having to get on top of the big in whatever gun it was on top. And he killed tons of people that were coming on them. And so I don't in any way think my dad intentionally killed anybody as far as a kid or anything like that. But this Ouija board, that day just flipped out. And like I said, it was naming cities in Vietnam where they lived and things like that. And it just got really weird that day. And I just, like I said, my dad was very skeptical.

And I remember looking at his face. I think some of the cities, I never even asked him later. I didn't say, dad, it's about a city you were in or anything like that. But you could tell he was pretty shaken when that happened that day. And anyway. With that, do you think that your dad had, I guess, a guilty conscience with that? Do you think that's why it freaked him out so much? Or do you think maybe he had, I don't know, something more personal happened over there that kind of freaked him out because this thing said it?

that? I think it was the fact that I don't think my dad had a guilty conscience for what he had to do over there because I thought when he passed away, a lot of his, um, his Vietnam brothers that were in his little group came down from Massachusetts and Michigan and from all over the country to go to my dance, you know, and talking to them, they just had to do what they had to do. I don't think my dad had to give, maybe he felt, um, guilty because of the, um, guilty because of the, you know, and talking to them, they just had to do what they had to do. I don't think my dad had to do. I don't think my dad had to, I'm guilty because of some of the stuff they had to do when they were there. I think what probably freaked him out was the fact that this board was naming cities in Vietnam. Yeah. You know, I didn't know any cities in Vietnam. And, you know, back in there was no internet. I couldn't Google Vietnam cities. You had to go to a globe or a map or the library or something like that.

So it wasn't like any of us knew where he was at. And like I said, I never went back and asked him, were you really in the city or anything like that? And so anyway, it was a pretty strange, strange incident. Yeah, for sure. But like I said earlier, it was like I had personally opened the door with this Ouija board. Because it got to the point where, to be honest with you, I didn't even need the Ouija board to know the answers to the question.

I could watch kids playing with the Ouija board across the room, and I knew, like, they would ask, what's in that car coming up or who's going to call on the phone neck? It was almost like, at that point, I would even know the answer. And it just got really, really dark. And we were at my friend's house playing with the Ouija board. And we had been playing it pretty regularly for probably about, I don't know, 30 to 45, 60 days. I don't know how long it was, but we were playing with it, and it started naming off this thing called Slufifer. Okay? At that point, things got really dark for me.

When Slufifer entered the scene, now here's my theory about the whole thing. I don't think there was a girl named Anna. I don't think there was any of those other things that we were supposedly contacting any other. names. I think it was all this particular demonic presence because I don't think, you know, I don't think that that Anna girl was even a girl from Vietnam because I think, you know, demons can see things. They, they're with us, they watch us. They know people better than we know ourselves. And so they know information about things that we don't. And so I think this Lucifer character was literally behind it all.

And once he made his presence known on the Ouija board, that's when things for me personally, that started getting really dark in my life. I remember I was, and I wasn't raised in a Christian home at all growing up. But I had a pull. I remember talking to my cousin, and we were like talking, and I was like, man, I'd like to get a satanic Bible. And he was like, yeah, me too.

And we were both playing with the Ouija board. And I said, I don't really believe in it. I just want to look at it and start, you know, just see what it's about and that kind of thing. I remember my music, you know, and I'm not talking anybody's music, okay? I'm not saying music made me evil. But some of the lyrics and like a band like Slayer, that kind of stuff, that that lyrics that I was listening to. And I remember going into my room and just put my headphones on and just listening for hours, that same stuff over and over

and it just got really dark. I remember one particular day I was getting ready to go to my friend's house and I went to go get one of my shoes and I remember as I was reaching down from my shoe, it just like moved

like not like across the room and hit the wall or anything but I remember it just like moved like a foot away from where I was. And so, and then I remember I mean, it didn't even really freak me out. It was almost like I was feeling something natural happen. I can't even explain it.

It was just like something, something was becoming a part of me. That's the only way I can explain it. And I remember seeing one, I remember I used to see like these dark shadows in my room at night. And I don't, you know, there was no particular story. I remember waking up one night and seeing it over me and it's not like it talked to me or anything like that. But it just, it just got really, really dark for about three years. And so for a while, it was just like really dark, dark, dark times. And, you know, I don't even, as I got into my late teens, I don't even remember when all that ended.

Like, it's not like all of a sudden the darkness just ended. It just kind of faded out for a while. Because I didn't play with Ouija boards when I was like 17 or, or 18 years old. I wasn't really into the occult. I was more into just partying and girls and things like that. So I don't really remember when it all ended. And I think it was just because life kind of got in the way.

You know what I mean? I just kind of started living a later teen life, junior, senior, and high school. And I just, you know, could drive and things like that. But during that time, I still, man, I had no more compass. And to be honest with you, I don't think that door was ever shut that I opened earlier with a Ouija board and stuff like that. So I think it was still with me just staying back in the shadows. And I'll talk more about something to happen later.

But I had no moral compass when I was a senior. I wound up getting my girlfriend pregnant in high school and she was a junior. And we had two daughters together. and anyway, about four and a half years later, that marriage ended. But there's some things that happened during that marriage that I'd like to talk about, too. Because part of what I believe is associated with my mom and her into the occult and all that stuff, and then me later, and I'll tell some stories here in a minute about my daughter. I think there's something like attached to our family line.

I think there's like generational type, I don't know if you, I'm not calling them curses, I think the demonic entities that just came around. You know what I mean? They just kind of hang from mom to, you know, you see people that are just stuck in these same cycles. And I just think that's what was going on. And it attached to my oldest daughter. When she was, we were living in that same house like a revoked. We bought it off my, our wife. We rented it off to my mom and dad when we got married and stuff. And my oldest daughter, I remember I'd come home or be on the phone with my wife, and she's like, hey, Jessica's got a new friend named Grandpa Loplop. And she talked to Grandpa Loplop all the time. And she would just get really weird with it.

Like she would just stare straight ahead, like she was talking to it. It wasn't like they were having a tea party or anything. It was like they were like, she was having some kind of weird conversation with somebody, and it would be like mumbling and whispering and things like that. And so she just kept having this same imaginary friend or whatever named Grandpa Lopla. One Memorial Day weekend, we were going to visit my first wife. Her little brother died when he was. six. He died because of the driver I was hidden in the road. And so he was buried in this graveyard.

And we were going to go meet her mom and dad at this graveyard and put flowers on his grave. And I remember we couldn't find his grave. And my little daughter, she was probably about three at the time. She was in the back seat talking like usual to Grandpa Lockpub. And she goes, I remember being here. I remember all you guys were over there, and I was over there, and she was pointing right where his grade was. And I remember looking at my wife and I was just like, and she said, we went there, and that's where everybody was. So it was like, she was picking up on something.

And so anyway, she was picking up on something. and my first wife's dad was really, I don't know how this gets connected with me as a young, young adult, but her dad was into Carol Carr and all that stuff. And he used to just play around with them and things like that. And one night, she got freaked out. And I remember the next day he called, and we were going to pick her up, my daughter, because she had stayed the night there. And he called us and told us, come get her,

and was going to get her, and he was freaked out because she was talking about Grandpa Lop-Lop. She was looking. She kept saying there's something, she was saying there was something in the corners and things like that. And he said, just a look in her face that, that, no, something was going on. And so, anyway, you know, there's nothing anymore attached to her. She's 26 now.

And anyway, it's just. just a really strange thing to happen for like the first, probably four years of her life. I often wonder sometimes when people, you know, talk about their kids or somebody's kids or siblings, having imaginary friends, sometimes I wonder, is it imaginary? Like, or is it something where, you know, people who don't believe in goes, people who, you know, just are, don't think along the lines that I personally think and most of people that are listening to the show tend to think. Is it something maybe a little different than that? that. I mean, I'm sure there's imaginary friends and things like that, but sometimes I wonder,

is it imaginary friends, you know? Because it's like, I know I keep just repeating myself, but it's like, it could be, but maybe it's not, you know? Maybe it's not. My sister had many imaginary friends as a little girl growing up. And, you know, I don't know. I tend to think that they were imaginary friends, but you never know. Maybe one of these days I'll ask her, you know. Yeah. Well, you know, and here's kind of my view on it. You know, I want to get the divorce from her in like four years after we got married and I got remarried. I've been married to my wife now for 21 years and life's been really good. But I became a Christian in 1997. And here's kind of what I believe. I believe some of us have certain spiritual gifting from what I read in scripture. Call it discernment, call it whatever you want. want. And maybe it's in the DNA. Maybe it's genetic. I don't know. But do I believe my daughter was reincarnated? I don't personally believe that because she was talking about being in a grave where that little boy was, you know, that's what through my mind. But I believe maybe she had that thing,

you know, that discernment type gifting. And I'll give you an example. Because here's the thing with the discernment, my opinion. You can use it for good or you can use it for a bad. I used mine for bad for a long time when I was younger. And I picked up on things and I could tell things and I could perceive things and, you know, I think something was using me through that. But here's a situation that happened probably about 12, 13 years ago. I was watching a movie in the living room with my wife. I'd been Christian for probably, I don't know, seven years or something like that.

And I'm watching a movie and a whole sudden I felt this pull inside me go outside and pray. go outside and pray, and that never happens. And I remember going outside and praying, and during this time, I was just trying to find a place in the church to volunteer. You know, God, what's your ministry for me? And I was just praying that prayer a lot. And I remember going outside and praying. And all said, I started thinking about like hospice and death and dying and things like that. And it wasn't like weird or anything. It was just like a good message of that kind of stuff. And I thought, you know, I'm the kind of personality type. I built guns. blaze in that direction. I don't, it's just like, you know, ready fire aim type, type deal.

Yeah. And so I just start thinking the whole next week, I'm going into hospice ministry. I'm going to start helping people go through that process. And I go to the library and I'm getting all the books I can. And anyway, about a week later, one of my cousins drowned. And so during that time, it was very beneficial to know the information I knew before because I was able to use some of that stuff that I've learned about reading and things to help my own family through that process. So, you know, I think it's a gifting that you can use it either way. You can either let the darkness use you or you can let the, you know, God and the good part of it use you, you know? And anyway, I think that was just, I think it's been attached to my family for years. And, you know,

we did have an enemy. My belief system is that we are. You know, the Bible talks about our struggles, not against flesh and blood, but against rulers and authorities and powers of this dark world against spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.

And I'm not preaching or anything, but from the experiences I had when I was young to what I've seen now, I believe that's 100%. And so I think there has been a personality, gifting, throughout my family, I don't know how far it goes back into the generations on my mom's side.

But a lot of them I don't think used it for the right, to the right side of the battle. You know what I mean? And so, you know, I just believe there's some doors that's been attached, you know, you can just open those doors and there's been some darkness that's been attached to my family for years. And here's where I'm at in it, because I've had some incidents that's happened. And then I became a Christian. I can get embroiled with the ghost shows. Like ghost hunters, when it was big with the two guys from Rotorut or whatever.

Taps. I was into it. Huh? Taps. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Taps. But I was into a big time to where I would just, once I started watching it, I just had to watch it constantly.

Okay? Every time to come on, I didn't even have Netflix a ton. But every time it came on, I had to watch it every week. I was just being enthralled by it. And I just got into it big time to where it kind of took over in a way. And I remember one evening, me and my wife were eating dinner and a couple of my, you know, we have five kids together. And a couple of them were eating dinner. And my son was probably about nine or ten at the time.

He went to go, this is a different house, by the way. this isn't the one I was raised in. But he went to go take a shower. And so I remember watching him walk towards the door to the hallway. And if he walked around the hallway, it was like I saw like a figure of light, like parallel to him from my angle, like behind him, walking with him. And I remember thinking to myself, well, what's probably happened is, you know, when you glance to your side, you see like shadow go by and it's a person. or something, you know, like the trail of a person, I thought, well, it was that. And as I looked across the table of my wife, she was like, had her mouth wide open.

And I looked at it and I said, did you see that? And she goes, she just sugared and she said, yeah. And I was a Christian at the time. And in my mind, I thought, man, it was, it was light. It wasn't dark. It was good. And that's what I told my wife. That's the story I told her.

And about a week later, me and my brother, we were moving furniture. He was moving into a new apartment. And I remember telling him the story, and he was a believer, too, in Christ. And he looked at me, and he said, brother, you better pray right now and shut that door. And as soon as he said that, I thought, oh, my gosh, I've opened that door again. And it wasn't like an angel of light. It was like something masquerading itself. And so, you know, I went back and I prayed and I asked God to forgive me and I repented of what I had done and renounced the work for the devil and I shut that door.

And nothing happened after that like that until a few years later. And once again, I opened that door usually through those shows, watching whatever, you know, I just started. And it's not like, I can watch a scary movie and be fine. but it becomes like an obsession. I can't explain it. I can watch it one. It's almost like an alcoholic. You know,

you could take one drink and be fine, but then there's times when somebody just goes nuts with alcohol. And that's kind of how I am with those shows sometimes. I don't think there's, you know, anything wrong with them. But for me, it's just, it's crazy. But anyway, a few years later, I find myself again watching those shows over and over. And one night, I went to bed before my wife and I was laying in bed.

And I was kind of drifting off and I felt something beside me in the bed, like something had indented the bed. And I remember thinking to myself, well, I must just be in that sleep, in between wake, sleep state. There's just my imagination. I was so tired. I just kind of caught back out or tried to clock out. And then about 30 seconds later, my wife comes on in the room. And she's like, did you, did you see something? And I'm like, what, what?

And she said, she was watching TV. And the TV sat on the same wall as the hallway door did to go back towards our bedroom. And she was watching TV. And it was like at night, all the lights dropped and she's watching TV. And she said she saw a dark, shadowy figure, look around the corner and then go back towards where I was in the bedroom. And I didn't tell her that night what had actually happened. to me. I didn't tell her until I had, again,

you know, prayed, ask God, you know, forgive me, I shut this door. And anyway, then I told her. And, you know, I firmly believe what shot beside me that night was that dark shadowy figure that she saw.

You know, it was only, and my wife's pretty skeptical about that, that's cute. She's kind of like my dad in that respect. So, whenever anything kind of kind of corroborated gathered, you know, the evidence? I'm like, man, this isn't just my imagination.

There's something else to this. And once again, you know, I had to open the door. And here's what I believe, okay? I believe there's a presence that's always watching. It's watching me. And it can't do anything as long as I'm, you know, not opening that particular door. but as soon as I give it the opportunity.

When I open that door, it's almost like I give it the right to come in. And so I believe it's watching me all the time, waiting for that opportunity to come right back in. And so I have to be very vigilant to keep that door shut. Yeah, you know, I think a lot of people, they have different triggers. Like you mentioned about the alcoholics, you know, alcoholics that have triggers, drug addicts have triggers. And I think when it comes to this kind of stuff, I think there are certain triggers that trigger this kind of activity in people's lives because, I mean, I don't think that watching those shows for everybody has the same effects as it has for you or else we hear about it more, right?

But I definitely hear what you're saying. And because I feel the same way about my own life, what you said really mirrors me when I was living in the apartments, especially before we bought our house, you know, three or four years ago. I watched a ton of those ghost shows. And that seemed to be right around the time that I started seeing shadow figures crossing across my hallway and things like that. And, you know, I was too stubborn to make a change in my habits. I loved the show. So I was like, well, whatever, you know, but I definitely think that there could be triggers. And I think there's definitely certain triggers for everybody comes from different aspects of life. And they have

different stories, not stories, but life stories. They all have different backgrounds and there's certain things that trigger for them more than other people, you know? Yeah, and I don't want to make any big feel bad or anything like that. But like you said, a trigger is a great word because for me, it was such a big part of my young life that, you know, it just had such an influence on me that now I got really be careful because I, you know, I did open something up back then and it just that is a trigger for me

and it doesn't, it's not just like I said, I can watch a scary show from time to time or whatever and I'm fine but there are those times when I just become obsessed with it like crazy and it just it just opens the door to something that I don't

want in my life, you know. I don't want it running behind my little boy, you know, that that That makes me feel responsible for opening that door. I don't want it messing with my family in any way. Anyway, one of the other things that I do is going on these mission trips around the world. And I go to places, pretty dark places. India is one of the places I go to.

And it's, I love the people of India, but it's a pretty poverty-stricken place full of all kinds of idol, idolatry and all kinds of, it's just disease and poverty and it's just really, really rough. But I know for me personally, when I get off that plane in China or India, wherever I am, I feel the oppression, man. I feel like things are not wanting me there when I'm there. And there was a situation that happened in 2016. We were on a trip into India, and we were going into jungle areas. I mean, they are back in the jungles of India where there's like elephants that were like, kill you if you go at the wrong time of day. But we were back in these jungle.

areas, and this day, this particular day, it had rained like crazy. And so our trails were, like, washed out, and we had to take these long, long route around to where we would, you know, our short cut would have been a lot easier, but we had take these other trails. Anyway, we wound up going through this, this village, a Muslim village. And they invited us in their house, their little hut area, and it was, you know, You know, and to get kind of an idea, it's not like they have a lot of rooms. I mean, they only have like maybe one room that's partitioned by blanket for maybe two rooms.

And we go into this house and, you know, I'm sharing and ministering to them. And we were done. And the head of the house, he said, would you, you know, I'm being translated. They're not speaking. They're speaking indie. But he's like, would you pray for my daughter? And so I said, yeah, you know, and there's a guy with me named Kumar. And he brought his daughter from around the corner.

And this girl, and like I said, I am skeptical. And I've been a Christian for 21 years. And I have never dealt with what I thought was possession of this trip. Okay, I see a lot of people doing a lot of flaky things. But this girl comes around this corner. And she looked like an animal caught in a trap. It was the weirdest thing. And she comes like, she was like down low, you know, coming at us.

And like she was trapped and confused and all this stuff. And in my mind, I'm thinking, I always try to think about what kind of mental handicap could this be or what am I seeing here? You know, I've learned a lot about schizophrenia and stuff like that. But this girl, when I looked in her eyes, they were like soulless, man, that's the only way. they were just like soulless eyes and like she hated me. And so I've never in my life dealt with anything like this. And I'm in the jungle thousands of miles from home.

And so all I know to do is what I've read in the New Testament. And I just start casting it out in Jesus's name and just praying and this kind of stuff. And I remember doing that and Kumar's yelling in Indy and all this stuff. and all this stuff's going on. And then she kind of changed, you know. It's like she kind of straightened up. And I remember Kumar wasn't done yet. And so Kumar, like, starts shouting at her in Hindi.

And he asked the dad to go get a glass of water and grabs the water. And he just, like, puts a cross in it with his finger, you know, and blows on it. And then has her say something that he gives her a drink. And so I remember after that, that was over, I'm just like, freaked out. You know, I'm like, what in the world is going on? And so after it was over, I asked, come on. I said, what, what did you just do?

And he basically told me, he said, he had to have her say Jesus is Lord. He had to have her say that because demonic forces will not, and they can't say that. And until she said that, he didn't feel like it was gone. And so the whole water thing, he said, you know, Indians are really into, into like superstitious type stuff. And he said it was just part of what he had to do across the culture. And you see a lot of that around the world. I mean, we can't go to other parts of the world and say,

we're bringing, you know, this to you and do it the way we do it. We have to blend what they do, you know, in worship style or whatever. But anyway, a couple of days. later, we were again in the jungles going through from these different houses.

And this day was intense. This was a crazy day. It started by us walking by this house where there was like, like, 50 people. And they're wailing and it's dusk. It's not quite it's probably about an hour before dark.

And they're wailing and carrying on and I'm just like Are we stopping here? He said, no, we'll come back here. But what had happened there was like a nine-year-old boy had died of typhoid. And so they were having kind of a funeral-type dinner. But we went on down, and we got to this one place where there was probably about 50 people, like sitting in this big circle, all right? Probably 15 yards from me to the person.

well, probably about 20 yards from me to the person, well, probably about 50, from me to that person in front of me. And so there's quite a big circle with all these people. And we were ministering and stuff like that. And then I asked the leader that was there at that house to Kumar, I said, hey, ask them if there's anything we can pray for them for. And this guy from across the circle said, through translation, can you pray for my wife? And I said, sure, we can pray for your wife. What's wrong with your wife?

And he said, she's mad. And I remember thinking the first thought that came to mind, well, my wife's mad at me all the time and I don't pray for her. And then I found laughing. And then he said back to him, he said, no, she's like, like mad, like crazy. And so as soon as he said that,

this lady, like, jumped straight up in there and, like, turned and took off running down this alley, like right in front of me. like ahead of me. And then she just like stopped. And it was literally like two things that grabbed her

by each arm. It was the weirdest thing. It's like it it's like she just halted and turned around and I remember her looking at me and came walking down that little little alley between the two houses towards me. And she looked just like

a girl before, two days before. I mean, just the same. Facial expressions were the same. contortions to the face of the same. The eyes were soulless, and I remember her coming at me, and it was just a really freaky situation, but I remember thinking to myself, well, I've got to be boldier, you know, and in my heart and in my mind, I'm thinking, I'm dealing with what I dealt with two days ago.

And so anyway, we prayed, and we prayed for a while, and she was just kind of thrashing about, and finally it was just like, it's not like a crazy exorcist, movie type situation when you deal with stuff like that. It was just like it was done. And she was like back to normal. And everything was back. But here, and I believe with all my heart that, man, something was jumping from person to person that that were there.

And why? I don't know. I don't know. But I think it was the same dark type demonic spirit. I don't think it was the one that I was dealing with as a kid, but this was just a different part of the country, you know, over the world. Right. It was a pretty intense situation.

Yeah, you know, I was going to ask you about that to see what you thought as far as whether you thought this was the same entity in two different people or if just, you know, people that are possessed tend to act the same. But I do know, like, one of the things that I tell people, now I don't have any experiences is with demonic exorcism. But what I do tell people is when you are praying

and you're casting something out, not to just cast it out and say, get out, but to tell it to go... Yeah, like I tell people say, tell it to go where Jesus Christ tells you to go. Because I don't want the responsibility of this thing jumping from,

you know, this person in front of me, me into their neighbor's house and possessing that person's house because demons are looking for bodies to possess. And so they're going to like just like in the Bible, you know, Jesus is doing his ministry and he casts out these demons that are in one body, many demons legion. And they asked him to go into the pigs, you know, like they want to possess bodies. And I have my own theories as to where and why these things are so obsessed with possession of bodies. But nevertheless, I do believe that, you know, when you're casting these things out, not to just be like, get out, but say, go where Jesus tells you to go. Let it in Jesus's hands. They put it in Jesus' hands like, here, Jesus, do something with this because I don't know what to do.

It's your job. Take care of it. You know what I mean? That's a real good point. Yeah, because I think of that other scripture that talks about when they cast them out, they go through erred places seeking, you know, a new place to go. And I don't know the exact scripture. That's just me paraphrasing. But that is a good point. And Kumar was saying a lot of stuff in Hindi. So he may have been, you know, I was kind of taken by surprise.

I'm going back here in the next 30 days. So I will definitely go read the scriptures and take that advice for sure. Do you get excited about going back now? I mean, knowing what you went through and what you experienced over there, and knowing that the chances of you experiencing something like that again is, it's pretty legit. I mean, you've experienced it twice so far. Do you get excited about the opportunity going back, or is it something that you're excited, but you're also a little nervous and, you know, just not sure what's going to happen, like maybe a little unsettled?

Man, I've been so many times. I really don't get super nervous anymore. That kind of stuff doesn't scare me or anything. The things that scare me most about those situations is how remote we're at. We're so remote. There's no infrastructure. And if something goes down with one of the team members getting sick, it's going to be hard to get them out quick because it's just so far. But there's been times I've been sick.

And being sick more than anything worries me, the rest of that stuff, you know, I just don't worry about it because of my belief in the power. of God and what's in me now. It doesn't like, like stress me in any way. So not, not, not, not much at all, really. Is that the most current and recent thing that had happened, you know, with these possessions, or as there anything else that you experienced over there? As far as that goes, that in India, there was another thing that happened in China one year. we were going to this Buddhist temple in China,

and it was a temple that had been around for 5,000 years. You know, it's been around forever. That's an old part of the world. I mean, people don't realize how old some of the history is in China. And, you know, the China whole dilemma, I mean, they are communists and they do not want us coming there. I mean, we have to be very careful. But we were going to this temple.

We had a bunch of students. You know, we had Chinese students, American students, and we were doing this cultural exchange type thing. So we were going to this temple one day. As we're going to this temple, I start feeling like super intense sore throat, okay? Just came out of nowhere, like fire. Like it was like burning in my throat.

and immediately I started getting fearful because like I said a while ago, the thing that worries me the most is sickness happening to one of us because doctors, medical things and other parts of the world are not good at all compared to what we have here. And so anyway, we're going through this temple and I'm on this charter bus with all these people and as I got closer, it got more and more intense and I start freaking out. I get inside, I'm like fearful, scared, what's going to happen? I'm 10,000 miles from home.

What if it's something serious? Anyway, it was like all of a sudden, I just felt like God was telling me, man, this is demonic. Just pray. Pray for healing. Pray that you'll be fine in the name of Jesus. And you're dealing with something demonic.

And so I remember I just prayed. And as I prayed, it just went away. And I remember when I come off that bus, I thought to myself, it was like, I'm thinking, we're going to a place that Americans probably have never been. Christians have never been at all. And so something didn't want to spare, and it was attacking. And I remember we got off that bus, and I remember I thought to myself, I'm just going to say, Jesus, everywhere I went.

I'm just going to say that. I'm not going to pray. I'm just going to say that name. And in my mind, I was thinking everything's like pleading, you know, when I'm saying this name. I remember there was a family that were doing blessings for their baby, a Chinese family. And there was a monk, a Buddhist monk, like performing some ceremony was like infants and rattles and all kinds of stuff. But man, this guy, the way he was gyrating and convulsing, it looked like he was possessed. Now, I don't know that for a fact, but it was a freaky scene watching him perform this blessing over this. little baby the way he was just doing it. It just looked like it was something demonic, in my opinion, too.

But I've seen things like that happen. It's more of the oppression you feel when you're in other parts of the world. Man, it's just, there's things that have been there for millennia, like kingdoms. And they don't want you messing with it, you know. They've controlled and controlled those people. And they do not want you messing up what they have. And I think that's what you see. some of this miraculous stuff happened, like in Africa and China and India, that I don't see happen here because you're on like the front lines when you're out there, you know? You're like the book of acts type stuff. You're like trusting that what you see in scripture is really going to happen in front of you

because that's all you got, you know? And so crazy stuff does happen out there. Yeah. You know, Scott, I'll tell you, man. And this kind of falls right into something that I keep getting emails from people about telling me how wrong I am. But until somebody really proves to me how wrong I am, I'm going to keep saying it. Yeah. You know, in America, we've stripped out the supernatural.

We stripped out God from our society and we stripped out his supernatural aspects. Now God is just a trophy that we put on the shelf and that shelf collects dust along with that trophy. and we pick it up every once in a while to admire it, but it holds no value to us. And, you know, when it comes to these other countries, it's very real. Spiritual warfare is very real. And it's not like it's something where they, it's part of their life. It's something that, you know, it's not, it's like they take super, supernatural spiritual warfare and things like that. they actually take it for granted as something that's just part of life. It's not crazy, like,

out of the ordinary for them. This is something that is just straight up every day. This is part of life. But here, I think we've been really blinded to, you know, the paranormal, supernatural aspects of life. We've been put on these blinders with our culture and we want to pretend that none of that's real. and when people say that they experience these things, they're just the crazy guys. They're just seeing things. They probably should get on some medications. Let's just give them some more pills.

Just give them some more medication. It'll all go away. And that's a problem. That's a real problem. We're drugging up people and stuff who say that they are seeing things. And I'm sure there are people out there who are straight up crazy. And they need to be on medication. But I've heard some stories.

of people who have seen things, dramatic things, and they've been put into mental institutions because they were told they were crazy. Only to, you know, six months later to be released, stop taking their medicine. They're fine. Their situation changed after they got out of the, out of the hospital or something like that, and they're not seeing these things anymore. They're not on the medication. Like, they're not crazy. I'm thinking, I know I'm talking in the circles here, but I'm thinking of one story where a guy had been released from the mental institution, but in that period of time, his dad moved. And so he's living in another place. And now that he's in this other place, all activity stopped. It's done. It's over. It was left behind the other place.

He's not, he wasn't crazy, but they don't have any other way to explain it other than you're crazy and you need to be put in a mental institution, be heavily sedated, and that will solve all your problems. Yeah. Well, and it's like in the south, you know, that's where I'm at. Man, this is stuff you don't even talk about in church. You know, you don't even acknowledge it. And like, demonic and some of this stuff I'm talking about. But there's something real going on. You know what I mean? We need to confront it. And we need to realize that some people do have a gift of this tournament. There is still supernatural thing. God is supernatural, you know? And it's like, one of those things where, like you said, here's the problem. We're all consumers. That's what we are in America. We're consumers. We have more than we can even imagine. You go to the places I go to. I mean, we're praising and worshipping. And there's like goats and guitar with three strings. And those people are just enjoying and are blessed beyond what we are in our smoke-filled, you know, light show type concert atmospheres. And we've stripped it all down. And we've stripped it all down.

we've we've numbed it to where it's a show and you're right the supernatural is gone. Why do I need to rely on anything? Because I can, you know, people think they can control everything. But like when we're there, you can't control. You know, I can't control if I'm, I've been super sick in India to the point where I thought I was dying. And I couldn't control that, man. And I remember the peace I felt in the midst of those situations thinking,

you know, it's almost like you feel so close to God in those situations. I've heard stories where people are about to get executed, and some of their friends around them are getting executed. And then they come back home. They make it through that situation, and they always date to each other. I wish we were back there because I felt so close. And there's been times where I've been in another bunch of world,

and that's how I felt. I mean, being sick and feeling like I was dying, and then knowing all I got to God. And so there's a supernatural aspect that happens. And that's one of the things that excites me about going back to those places. Yeah, that's kind of cool, man. I mean, like, you know, I was raised in a Christian church, and I've had opportunities go on mission trips. I've never been on a mission trip.

It just never really developed for me. But I hear a lot of people come back and say a lot of similar things that you're saying right now, that it's just like you feel more alive and the culture change and the reality of, you know, not just the supernatural, but the reality of what the world is outside of America. I mean, forget, forget the supernatural, forget the paranormal, forget everything we just talked about for the last hour, just the fact that you take yourself outside the American culture and society and put yourself into another culture, all of a sudden you realize how good you got it in this country. You know what I mean? Like, like, we got it good. And so go ahead. I'm sorry.

That's the thing that changes people. Because you're right. I mean, we go to China, which is the most populated nation in the world, and then India, which is second. But India is going to be number one probably in the next 20 years. And the poverty that you experience in India, we don't even have a, there's 300 and some million Americans. There's like one point some billion Indian. We don't even remotely know how rich we are. Even the poorest here has so much more than probably 98% of the world. population. So we really are, and I don't want to make anybody feel bad, but we really are living

in a dream world here in America because you go outside the border, and there's a lot of suffering and a lot of stuff happening. We just can't comprehend. And I wrestle with that. You know, I wrestle with that when I come home. Why am I so blessed to be here, you know? And it's a struggle, but I don't put that on other people. Like I don't come home and say everybody's going on my strips, you know, because they haven't experienced it yet. I can't put that burden on them because I've seen it. You know, I just try to help people realize that literally we're living in the dream world here in America.

Man, I can't even explain how much when you see, you know, naked little kids in the train stations of India dirty and filthy and. and, you know, I'm poor mom trying to raise them the bed. It's just a sad, sad situation. Yeah, it's on a whole other level when it comes to going to another country. I mean, like, we have poor people here in this country. We have homeless in this country, but it's different when you go to a third world country, and everybody is homeless.

Everybody's living, like, the worst homeless person here in this country. You know what I mean? It's just, it's on a different level. Yeah. I mean, people literally, when you go to, like, Delhi. I don't know if you've heard last summer or the summer before. I mean, it got like record-breaking temperatures. People are literally dying in the streets of the heat.

I mean, just mass. You know, it's just a sad situation. And they were probably older, homeless people or, you know, little kids that are homeless or something. But it's just, it is devastating. But we just do what we've got to do to try to help them. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Well, you know, I wanted to ask you a couple things here about, you know, Just one of the things about your mom, but before we get to your mom, I wanted to bring up this point that earlier in the interview, you said that it got to the point where you knew that somebody was, I think you said somebody was going to call before they called, or you knew the answers before they were given on the Ouija board.

And it reminds me just of me personally, actually. I never had control over this. And it happened a lot more when I was a kid. In fact, I can't remember ever happening as an adult. But there was times when I was. a kid that I just had this sense that something was going to happen and then it happened. And it got to the point where I remember the one time I got some confidence going and stuff. And when I felt this feeling, I was going to act on it. And so we're sitting in the living room and I really felt the phone was going to ring. So I just stood up from the couch. I walked over to the counter where the phone was and I reached out my hand before it even rang. And just as I was about to pick it up, it started ringing. And I just in this, in one motion, picked it up, answered it, gave it to my mom because it was for my mom. I turned around and my dad, he looks at me.

He's like, did you know that's going to ring? And I'm like, yeah, or something that I can't remember exactly what I said and stuff. But I remember my dad looking at me saying, did you know that was going to ring? Yeah. But he never talked to me about before that. And I know my dad listens to the podcast. So when he hears this stuff, he's probably going to say, I don't remember that at all. Or he's going to be like, yep, totally remember that.

It freaked me out. Yeah. Yeah. That stuff happens. me still. I mean, it still does not in a weird, dark way, but, you know, somebody will call or I'll be thinking of somebody. I'll be talking to my wife about that person, and then they call or whatever the situation. So, yeah, that happens to me a lot, too. Yeah. So, you know, I wanted to ask you about your mom. You started off with that whole story of your childhood and your mother and

everything, but you really didn't kind of tell me, like, do you know how she got involved in the Nicole, like, do you know, like, what the process was for her? Or is it something that she was raised in? Do you know anything about that? No, not really. To be honestly, that's a good question. I've never asked her that. I would think it probably, I would think it probably has something to do with my grandma.

Just because I remember a story my mom told me about two stories. Actually, my, my grandpa, my mom's dad died and, like, I remember my mom told me a story about how after he had died, my grandma told her, told my mom that she had a dream that she was walking down the street towards the cemetery where my grandpa was buried. And she said he was walking down the street and he hugged her and basically told her. He said, there's a lot of stuff you don't understand now. and but you'll understand someday. And she said she woke up that morning like he was in bed with her, like he was hugging her.

You know what I mean? And so I remember my mom telling me that story, but I also remember my mom told me another story about how one of her brothers who was older and her was sick. This was probably in the 40s. And my grandma was in the room, and it was nighttime, and they put him in a little like a laundry basket type deal,

the baby to sleep. And she put him in that laundry basket. And like I said, he had been sick as a child. And that night, she said, she saw a, like a blue glowing misty light like over that little area where my uncle was as a baby. And at that moment, she realized that he would be fine. She never worried about him being sick later on. Now, I say that because both those stories were filtered from my grandma to my mom to me. So maybe it was something that started like back with my grandma.

I mean, that's the only thing I can think of where it might be to just because of those stories coming through my mom from her. So, and my mom, like I said earlier, she wasn't into like it was the Ouija board and it was mainly just. dabbling and like going to psychics and caro card readers and things like that. She wasn't like crazy into the occult. I just think she opened up a door for me that that wasn't good. Or she, I kind of, it's not like she ingrained me into it. I just watched it and I followed. I got you.

You know, with this room that you guys found, I think you described it as under the house. Now, you described it as there are stairs going down. Yeah, under the house. When you discovered all this, the stairs were included in the discovery. You didn't even know there was stairs there. The whole time we lived in that house until 2003, when we ripped up that floor, we had no idea. The house was over this area. And so we didn't know that whole time that that room was under there.

Now, it makes sense that it was where it was at because the one-room shack would have probably been on the back of that one-room shack, like almost like a cellar or a root, you know, like they call them root cellars where they'd put potatoes or whatever and they'd stay good underground. But, man, I don't know. It was weird. I remember when we dug this, when we tore that floor, I and saw that, it was just like, what in the world? Are you serious as has been here for the last 20 years we lived there? We had no idea, and they just floored it back up and moved out. That's what they did. Wow.

Did you get any pictures of it? No, we didn't get any pictures. Oh, man, I would have died to see that. I would have died to see it. I mean, what you're describing? I just, it's so mysterious, and I just want to see it. I want to go in it. I want to see it.

I don't even know who owns that house now. I drive by there all the time. But I don't know, man. It's there. Would you ever consider going up to the people that live there now and telling them it's there? Yeah, I don't, I don't know. I don't know. Oh, yeah, because that might be some kind of buyer's disclosure.

Well, and it wasn't my house. It wasn't me the one that did that. But yeah, you're probably right. still one of these days when I'm rich, maybe I'll buy it for the heck of it. It's not a super expensive house. It's probably worth about, I don't know, $60,000 to $80,000 over there in that part of Tulsa. But it'd be cool to buy it. It would make a great storm shelter here in Oklahoma.

We have tornadoes. And if you put a little hatched door there, you can go right down to that area and be cool, you know, during the tornadoes. Do you think that might have been what it was originally attended for? No. I think it was a seller, like when it was that one-room shack. The house was built around over the decade. Like rooms were added. A roof was added over.

I mean, you could look in that attic and see the old roof. And then you'd see the new roof above it. Like, it was crazy. And you see a little chimney coming out of that old roof. And I just think it was like a basement to that old house. You know, I don't know. I don't know. It was just a weird.

That's the only thing I'd. could come up with because it didn't look like it was any part of any sewer system, you know, like it was an old sewer system or something because it was just stairs that led to this room. It wasn't like there was pipes going in any direction underneath the house. So it was pretty weird though. If you were to have access to the house for one day, would you easily be able to access that? Or is that completely shut off now covered up? you can't access it unless you tear up flooring.

Well, you could probably go through if there's still an opening in a crawl space, but I don't know, you know, going underneath houses like that, sometimes dirt collects to where you can't get over certain amounts of dirt, you know. We had plumbers under that house over the years, and nobody ever saw it. And so it was more, there's an access to, I think it's the south side of the house on the side. because it was crawl space, like I said. And it was probably a good, golly, I don't know, 10 yards, 15 yards to where that room was underneath the house. It was almost like, almost thinner.

I mean, it's almost like in the center of the house. But you have to dig underneath or tear the floor out. There's no other way to get there, step or through that one-axis side on the side or dig in. through the floor, tearing the floor out again. And I'm not, I'm not planning on a problem. That's nasty, man, underneath those houses. Yeah, no, I'm sure it is. But anyway, it was, it was pretty weird.

Yeah, for sure. Absolutely. I mean, that would be so creepy. I mean, if, you know, I found out underneath my house, I'd be like, what the heck? Like, no wonder I've been seeing the shadow figures in the house. no wonder why. I'm waking up with scratches on my body. No figure. There's a room underneath that out.

Oh, I see dead people for a reason. For sure. Yeah, it was insane. Wow. Well, Scott, listen, man, I really appreciate coming on and sharing these stories tonight and stuff. It's been fascinating and definitely a pleasure of mine, man. I appreciate it a lot.

No problem, man. I appreciate you having you. For sure. man, take care. Hi. Well, that's the show, everybody. I really hope you enjoyed it. If you did enjoy it, there are three things you can do to help support the show.

One, you can go to iTunes and leave a five-star rating and review. Or three, and this is for free. You can highlight the link to the show that you're listening to right now and share it around social media. That would help me out a great deal as well. And until next week, stay safe, take care, and remember, the truth will set you free, but first, it will piss you off. Bye.