This Paranormal Life - #334 Crystal Balls - We Tried One and Saw The Future

Episode Date: September 26, 2023

Crystal balls. We've seen them everywhere haven't we? They've been depicted in thousands of movies and TV shows over the last fifty years - but how do they actually work? On this week's episode Kit and Rory open the history books and learn about one famous crystal ball practitioner who became one of the richest and most successful performers of his generation, a man who would also go on to marry fourteen times and shoot someone in the street! But our expert paranormal investigators don't stop there, they also unveil a crystal ball in the studio and try and predict the future. But is any of it real?LIVE TOUR - https://www.thisparanormallife.com/tourFollow us on Twitter, Instagram, and YouTubeJoin our Secret Society Facebook CommunitySupport us on Patreon.com/ThisParanormalLife to get access to weekly bonus episodes!Buy Official TPL Merch! - thisparanormallife.com/storeIntro music by www.purple-planet.comResearch by Amy GrisdaleEdited by Philip Shacklady Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Can a crystal ball help you gamble? Why is cow's milk okay but human milk is forbidden? Answers to these questions and more on This Paranormal Life! Hello! Whoa! Welcome back to This Paranormal Life, the weekly comedy podcast wherein every Tuesday we pick apart a different paranormal tale and by the end of the episode decide whether it's true or not.

You're being hosted, you're joined by two of the most illustrious, decorated war hero, not war heroes, but paranormal investigators in the game. My name's Kit Greer-Molvena. This guy across from me is Rory Powers. How you doing today, Rory? I'm doing fantastic, Kit. And two incredible questions to ask at the start of this podcast you know let's focus on the milk one for a start I just got the shit what was the, get out of that all shit about the crystal ball or whatever it was at the start

of the aliens, we need to look at the milk what was the question, is it illegal to drink human milk? It's just more of a, why do we draw the line at human milk? Well, babies don't. Those weird little freaks. True, true. They're drinking it down like crazy. But humans, we're pretty nasty. We'll consume all kinds of milk and milk byproducts from all kinds of animals. Yeah. But for some reason, we get squeamish around what really should be the most obvious and natural.

And I'm a big investor in the human milk company. This is a startup founded by currently me. I am the CEO, CFO, CTO, and board of directors of the human milk company. I don't really want to know anything about that. I don't know where we get the milk from. No, I don't want to know where you get the milk from. It's probably for the best. Humans, I assume.

The sources are being kept, of course, under embargo for the time being, but we assure you that it is at least 98% human milk. It is kind of bizarre to think back to the past where, you know, humans have done some incredible things and made some amazing discoveries over the years. You know, we built the pyramids. Yeah. We invented the iPhone. And somewhere along the way,

some stranger decided to suck on a cow's titty. Yeah. And he was like, I'm just going to, bear with me, guys. Let me have a little suck on this thing, and let's see what comes out. And apparently it was so good, which it couldn't have been, by the way. I refuse to believe what came out of the cow was so good which it couldn't have been by the way i refuse to

believe what came out of the cow was good enough that he was like this shit slaps and by the way when you suck it straight from the teat it's all warm milk oh stop no no i'm done i'm done which is good warm milk helps you sleep it's a's a nice nighttime. Look, I'm vegan. I don't drink any of this shit. I think everyone's weird. Cow's milk, dog milk, whatever kind of milk you're talking about. I don't touch this stuff. But I'm just saying, if you're a weirdo that drinks cow's milk, why stop there?

Drink human milk. You know that guy got so gassed up. He was like, oh my God, this is amazing. Someone bring me a dog. And he was like, that was a bad idea. It's just the cows. It's just the cows.

Oh my God. A taste of rancid piss. Look. Have we tried drinking every animal's milk? I don't... It's just a question. Just an interesting question.

I know because it's pretty much just cow and goat that is kind of on the market. Is butterfly milk real or is that something from Lord of the Rings? It's not f***ing real. What are you talking about? It sounds like some sort of mythical potion. I have never heard that combination of words in my life. That's what the doctors used to call the injection they gave. This is a real story. Because I had to have operations on my ear when I was a child.

And whatever the substance was that they inject into you to knock you out before the operation was like a white vial of liquid. So because they were using like baby language because you were a kid going into surgery, they would always go, here comes the butterfly milk. And then they would inject it. And then they'd be like, count to 10. And you'd be like, one, straight out.

It was crazy. Doctor leans over to your mom. It's liquid fentanyl. They really couldn't come clean about what that was Yeah they baby talked everything The needle was a bumblebee sting And then afterwards they were like Mummy and daddy don't have enough chocolate coins To afford healthcare

So no more butterfly milk for you young boy this is mid-surgery i'm cut open ah rory the horrors of the american medical system are not the topic of today's episode. Should be. That's a double yes. For what? It's f***ed. Okay. Is what it is. That is kind of what a double yes means. No, today we've got a brand new paranormal tale. But now, sorry, now after those operations on one of my ears,

I've been gifted the supernatural ability to be able to hear at the same frequencies and intensities of a sheep. Sheep don't notoriously have good hearing. It's substantially worse than human. That's what I thought. It's way worse. I can't hear anything out of one side of my head. I thought you were going to say dog or eagle.

No, no. I wish for an eagle ear. That would be fantastic. But no, sheep ears. All right. It was just a joke to keep it light. I've had to keep it light for 21 years yeah you've been you've been you've said quite you gotta speak up motherfucker if you're gonna respond to me because i think i've established i can't hear shit yeah i don't know if we've said

that on the podcast before but it might explain a lot to our listeners uh the fact that rory has partial hearing yeah that's why I am as dumb as I am and as loud as I am. Because his mouth works fine, so information is coming out, but not a lot goes in. My parents are like, he keeps telling people he has sheep ear,

but he just shoved cotton wool in one of his ears as a child and never got it out. That's all it is. We have a giant investigation to get into we're gonna do it right away after a couple of words from today's sponsors remember you can get this episode and every single episode of this paranormal life ad free at patreon.com forward slash this paranormal It's Paranormal Life. Check it out. Today's story brings us to the streets of San Francisco. May 1915.

Outside a bustling theater. Ooh. A bustling theater. Probably like the theater we'll be performing at soon in San Francisco. I don't know if you've seen the f***ing ticket sales, brother. But bustling is not. Sorry. Keep it light.

We're coming to San Francisco. We'll talk about it later at some point. Hey, bimbos. Hey. Bimbos. Yeah. They're bad. Bustling is not a word I would use, brother.

It's, I don't know what we did. Have we offended the people of San Francisco before? Have we talked shit about them? Hey, this is our chance then to win them back and sell some tickets. So let's paint them in a good light. Because I know they're a bunch of f***ing nerds and they all work in tech or whatever. This isn't a good way to win them back and sell some tickets so let's because i know they're a bunch of nerds and they all work in tech or whatever this isn't a good way to win them back but like i don't know what to do to appease these f**ks maybe like let's tell a nice story based in their hometown

you think that would do it let's give it a shot right okay jesus get your tickets! One night only! The great, the magical, the all-knowing Alexander! Yes, you, sir! The street was humming with the excitement of seeing one of the greatest performers of a generation live on stage. Alexander, the man who knows. Whoa, cool name. Oh, cool name. He was, at the time, extremely famous as a psychic, magician, and mystic, selling out venues across America for weeks at a time.

Inside the theater, a silent and rapt audience watched as a tall man with wide eyes, long robes, and a large turban moved slowly around the stage. This is so cool, man. moved slowly around the stage. This is so cool, man. I miss the days where something like a magical performance like this would be the number one attraction that you could attend. It was the talk of the town, you know? It wasn't people queuing up to see

Christopher Nolan's new masterpiece. They were like, I'm gonna watch a guy called Gandalf make a rabbit appear from his ass. That was the peak. That was the, like, gentleman, elderly gentleman would sit around and be like, have you boys seen Quasimodo the Wonderful? You know, that was the classy thing to talk about. Yeah.

Just a night on the tiles with your missus on a Saturday. about yeah just a night on the tiles with your missus on a saturday was going to see a guy who claimed to be a sufi mystic uh catch a bullet in his mouth and by the way his sidekick died last night in chicago but the show is still going on i need another volunteer from the audience someone with a question written down you sir Have you written down a question for me? Yes, sir. And where is the question now? It's in an envelope. Sealed in this envelope. What is your name?

John. John, I need you to think about that question. Hold it in your mind and mentally project it towards me can you do that look into my eyes okay alexander step to the side scrying is an ancient esoteric artwork sorry i meant to write art form don't interrupt if it was your script in your typo then that's your problem man in the front rudely interrupting. There's no way he would have gone off script like that. Don't interrupt a second time, man at the front. I can make shit disappear. That's what magicians do, sir.

Would you like to disappear? No, sir. Then be quiet. Silence, mortal. Sorry. I have a gun. I'm not afraid to use it I can catch a bullet Can you catch a bullet, motherfucker?

It's a completely broken character I can catch a bullet in my teeth You'll catch one in your fucking chest If you keep talking like that I'll make doves appear at your funeral, bitch Sorry, back into character Ramp up that music again, sorry I'll make doves appear at your funeral, bitch. Sorry, back into character. Ramp up that music again.

Sorry. Scrying is an ancient esoteric... What was the line? Sorry, art? Art form. Art form. Got it. She wrote artwork, so that's what I'm going with here.

Take it again. Let's try and ramp up the music again. Sorry, I did the roll wrong that time. We can skip this side if it's a big problem. No, no, no, it really needs the roll. Scrying is... I'm sorry, man. I'm going to be crying if you don't hurry up with the scrying.

Three, two, one. Scrying is an ancient esoteric art form practiced by the ancient Egyptians to Babylon and Mesopotamia. Should I go from the start of the line again? Because I messed up that one. Probably, yeah. Okay, three, two, one.

Scrying is an ancient esoteric art form practiced by the ancient Egyptians to Babylon and Mesopotamia, to the Roman Empire, and still today in the remote foothills of the Himalayas. He pulled away a sheet from the table, revealing a crystal ball. An art form I have mastered, studying under the mystics of old. I can gaze into the crystal ball and reveal truths from the past, present, or future.

Alexander focused his gaze on the crystal ball as the lights lowered and the audience fell silent. He looked as if he was instantly in a trance. John, the answer to your question is 43. John's face fell. He ripped open his envelope. I wrote down what age my brother was when he died. 43. I can't believe it. He was 43. The audience roared into applause. Alexander, the man who knows, would perform countless feats of magic and mysticism on stage, but the crystal ball became his signature, his calling card. It was featured on all his posters and people flocked from around the country to see his amazing abilities. Before long, his skills were even in high demand among the rich and famous of US society. Wow. He would

hold private sessions where he would read the future of his clients, gazing into his crystal ball until he fell into a trance and reading their deepest fears and hopes and dreams. This is kind of smart. This is using your abilities to not only perform a live show to make a ton of cash, but those abilities can also be essentially guns for hire that the rich and the wealthy can use, which is kind of what happened in the real olden days. can use, which is kind of what happened in the real olden days. You know, this is a period where most of the magical performances by, you know, psychics or magicians would be on stage. But if you go way back in time, there's so many old Egyptian pharaohs or, you know, knights who guarded over huge patches of land that would have essentially supernatural servants who would you know predict

the outcomes of battles and be able to you know place curses on opposing forces it was more of a common thing you you're basically your army would contain a wizard you're absolutely right we've even seen that depicted in like movies and media where yeah you know the the army are set up in an encampment outside the city they're attacking and you know the general of the army goes to the wizard and is like yeah you know what do the humans say you know should we strike tonight or by dawn it's like well the tea leaves say by dawn yeah by dawn it is you know because it was it was felt that far beyond the actions of men, really it was like, you know, the gods and the forces of the universe

would ultimately decide what was going to happen. Yeah, it's true. That's why I think for all kind of competitive fighting leagues, UFC, boxing, even WWE wrestling, wizards should be legal. You should also be able to, you know, in Lord of the Rings fashion, if one dude is just super buff and he is very flexible and he can roundhouse kick people, the other guy should be able to have a wizard

who can kind of place curses from the side of the ring, throw potions on stage, you know, to be able to try and buff his dude. You know, I think he should like level the playing field a little bit interesting i mean mma literally stands for mixed martial arts and the idea is bringing together all the fighting styles of the world so it's surprising we haven't seen that already yeah instead of like a karate guy going against a kickboxer. I want an orc going against a wizard. I want a hobbit versus a dwarf. I want just mythical fights. You want to watch Lord of the Rings on Blu-ray, I think,

because most of those things don't exist. Maybe you're right. It's been a while since I've seen the trilogy. You know, Alexander is a fascinating character, but here on This Paranormal Life, we care about the actual paranormal itself, which is why today we're not focusing on him, this psychic and his show, but the thing that became his specialty, this crystal ball. Because whether you believe in Alexander or not, and we'll talk more about him later, the one thing he was right about was the art of scrying is extremely ancient and extremely paranormal. Rory, how much do you know about scrying or crystal balls? The only thing I know about crystal balls is using them as an object to see into the future. You know, you see it all the time in pop culture, stare into the magic ball and rub the top of it or something. And there will, it's like a snow globe.

There'll be a little misty storm inside and then it will reveal future events or possibilities to you. But aside from that, I don't really know much about the process of scrying. Even that word is not one that gets thrown around a lot these days. Yeah, to be clear at this point, scrying, that is just the word for what you're doing, which is looking into this reflective surface and trying to reach information from the past, present, or future,

whatever it is. The reason you call it scrying is because you don't need a crystal ball. There are lots of other methods we'll get into uh but that's the that's the catch-all term i'm really glad we're talking about it because the more i researched it and the more i thought about it and the more i'm talking about it this feels like really important to get to the bottom of well yeah as paranormal investigators absolutely if it turns out that there's some truth to this, we're going to be using this motherfucker for everything. It just seems weird is all.

In all media, we all just grow up knowing that if you stare into a crystal ball, it will cloud over and you can see the future. That's kind of a big deal. Right. Where did that come from? Because like we didn't grow up watching like in all like cartoons and movies and stuff. There wasn't like tarot cards everywhere or like, I don't know, summoning circles or whatever. But for some reason, crystal balls absolutely everywhere. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. So maybe, who knows? Maybe we're about to find out there's more truth to this than we think. So like I say, scrying, this whole process, this is the way you can read the future, find out inner truths, communicate with the dead, or all of the above. You know, we've talked before about the long list of mansies, you know, cleromancy, necromancy, oneromancy. Pyromancy. Too right. These are all paranormal methods of divination.

This is kind of just another one of those. So with scrying, you can use the crystal ball. Ah. Or you can use scrying bowls, water, fire, smoke, apparently even just the back of your own eyelids. Wow. But none is more famous or iconic than the crystal ball. It's said that the user of a crystal ball can gaze into it,

and after a period of time, the crystal will cloud over or become milky, which is when the fortune-telling is really possible. From here you can read all kinds of esoteric knowledge. It's hard to say exactly how old this practice is, but it goes back at least 1,500 years, as they found evidence of crystal balls in use in ancient Rome around 500 AD, as well as with Celtic druids.

Wow! Somewhat around the same rough time period. That's crazy. I didn't realize it went back that long. And that's over quite, like, a big area as well. Yeah, yeah. Big spread there. And let's face it i mean the way history

works that we kind of just like we discover stuff that's a certain age there's every chance that goes back much further than that that they didn't invent it right then and there in the year 500 a.d god knows how much further these go back and if we're talking about other methods of scrying, then there are references in the Bible. In the book of Genesis, they mention a cup being used for divination. In ancient Persia, there's the cup of Jamshid, which the kings could use to, quote, see all seven layers of the universe.

Jesus, I didn't realize there were that many. Which kind of low-key makes me think that shit worked, because I didn't know there were that many. Which kind of low-key makes me think that shit worked because I didn't know there were seven layers of the universe. Yeah, you've seen six more than me, bud. Yeah, yeah. If a salesman's trying to sell me on a crystal ball and he's like, you can see all seven layers of the universe with this thing, I'm like, huh?

What? There's more than one? I have a tenuous grasp on this universe, so I don't know if I need six more. I feel like any object that could be used to see the future in these days was probably being used for more romantic reasons. You know, I feel like people would probably

rub the ball or the lamp and say, you know, a great prophecy of stories untold. Tell thy, will the harvest be bountiful this fall? Or, you know, like, let me know, will my battle on the field be victorious tomorrow in blood and glory? Whereas if that existed now, I'd be like, Crystal Ball, if I ate a big sandwich now would i still be hungry for dinner tonight you know i'd be like crystal ball should i get call of duty on the xbox or playstation

it's like that's just an opinion it's it's not even it's not even like a truth of the universe i'm using it like a magic eight ball the crystal ball is like you don't you're not even like a truce of the universe. I'm using it like a magic eight ball. The crystal ball's like, you're not even supposed to shake me. Cut it out. I'm like shaking the f***ing thing. Give me an answer. Yeah, if crystal balls worked

and were readily available today, the local betting office would be full of like 50-year-old blokes all with crystal balls, just putting down horse bets all day long. Wizard robes and staves and everything, yeah. Even Mormonism is basically based on scrying. They believe that Joseph Smith had spectacles made out of seer stones that allowed him to translate the golden tablets that would become the Book of Mormon. Which really feels like it should be TPL merch.

A set of glasses which just had two rocks instead of lenses. But they're like crystals. That is incredible. I think the closest we ever got to that was the aura glasses, which was a pair of sunglasses that we used that allegedly could show you auras and spirits and ghosts um so it's not far off yeah it's true even though the whole thing seems kind of strange and niche to begin with it's seemingly built into a bunch of different religions like that's kind of crazy. Yeah. Because these days, like, religion is so kind of accessible and friendly that it's like, you know, if you're interested in the word of the Lord, just pick up the book.

Just pick up the book. See what he has to say. See if it makes sense to you. Does it do the stories, you know, teach you anything about your own life? life whereas back in the day it was like you cannot understand the words of the lord without owning the seer stones which have been mined from the pits of mordor right right it's like the whole thing was a lot more mystical it was like it was like if you look at the word of god you'll die you need to wear these spectacles of stone in order to interpret it. All right, so we know the crystal ball and all the scrying stuff goes back a long way.

It's legit. It's old school. It's been around for a long time, which is interesting because that might hint there's something here. There might be at least a grain of truth to all this. But we need to figure out if crystal balls are real and work today.

We're going to figure all that out and hear a little bit more about Alexander afterander after a couple words from today's sponsors look the elephant in the room is that there's a big difference between stage magic and the paranormal right alexander may have been amazing but so was darren brown today right? There have been countless people over the years who became incredible performers, claiming to be psychic, claiming to have special telekinetic or paranormal abilities, but really blending showmanship, stagecraft, and real history to make something believable and entertaining, but not paranormal. I think that's literally how Darren Brown starts his show right uh i

can't remember the exact wording but i'm pretty sure his tv show and his stage show start with him being like uh hey this is not real right i am not magic i'm just really good and i use like the power of suggestion and shit and then he literally makes a man levitate eight foot into the sky and you're like no you're magic chief that's just what you would say isn't it magic man but with alexander that's where things kind of got interesting he became angry about the way psychics and frauds deceived and tricked people using stage magic to claim they had a connection to God or something. So he started writing. He wrote books exposing the methods used by mediums.

Oh, wow. Taking down his fellow magicians. But strangely, he didn't include crystal balls in all this. If anything... It's because it's his shit. He's like, everyone else is a fraud. But actually, the thing I do, though, is pretty legit. Tickets on sale right now.

Head to alexander.com forward slash tour. If anything, he wrote books about how he truly believed in spiritualism, prayer, and divination, specifically scrying using his crystal ball, which leaves us with a muddy picture, Rory. On the one hand, you you got fake mediums are using crystal balls to charge high ticket prices to their shows and on the other people are claiming that this is a legitimate paranormal science with a long history yeah we gotta figure out what's

going on which is why i've got us a crystal ball right here in the studio. Whoa! Behold! Oh my God. It's so big. That's huge. Oh, this thing is so sick. Can I pick it up? Yeah.

Oh, that's heavy. It's giant. Oh my God. Is this real crystal or is it glass? I don't know. I guess it's just oh my god is this real crystal or is it glass i don't know i guess it's just whoa for every eye is the size of a grapefruit he's looking through it trippy it's working already i guess um this i don't think i've ever actually seen one in person before yeah this is it's enormous it's way bigger than but i figured how could we talk about this thing without just getting one getting what you know we're paranormal investigators we need all kinds of paranormal equipment in our studio you know we wouldn't

have the tools of the trade if we didn't own a crystal ball yeah that's really true that's really we were missing it this is giant this is about the size of uh it's actually kind of hard to say it's like the size of it's like the size of a child's head it's yeah it's very large it's very heavy it's like a few inches in diameter he's cool man look at the way the light like reflects through it yeah if this thing can't tell you how to kill your enemies in the future you could just use it to kill your enemies because this thing is enormous and heavy now that i'm seeing it in person i think i kind of expected it to be you know just like looking through a pane of glass for some reason but i never really thought about because it's like obviously a sphere, it has a kind of cool lens effect.

Right. So looking through it is very trippy. Yeah, because it flips everything upside down. Yeah. Very strange. So what we've got to do, Rory, is try and use this thing to get some firsthand experience

and help us understand this case even deeper, which is why I have found a 10-step bullet point list online of how to use a crystal ball now i want to clarify is this to use the crystal ball to see the future or for one of its other various uh abilities because can't you also use it to just see what's going on in different parts of the world like a little window into just another corner of the universe yeah uh yeah that's definitely depicted in films isn't it yeah it would be like oh where where are my friends

it's like i'll show you right now and then it clears and then you see them like oh yeah cold mountaintop shivering and it's like we have to go save them you know like villains love pulling that shit don't they yeah yeah yeah Yeah. Oh, your precious friends. Where are they now? Yeah. They'll be here any second to save me. Will they? The crystal ball shows a bunch of skeletons wearing your friend's clothes.

You're like, oh, fuck. The witch is like, that's not even far away. They're just next door. I thought it'd be more exciting, though, to show not even far away. They're just next door. I thought it'd be more exciting though, to show you through the ball. No, it's an excellent question. I think let's, let's set the bar low. Okay. And let's just figure out how to just look into it full stop. And then we'll see what we see, put it that way. All right. I'm into'm into that you know because if we see some groundbreaking you know information from the future amazing or if we get a live feed of the tesco's clearance aisle

down the street here uh and they we see they got pastries going for 49p each that's important that's good too yeah really good um and we are recording this on video. We have the cameras going in the studio. If you want to watch this, these episodes are on YouTube. And if we see something really bad, we're going to smash the ball. We're going to smash it on the floor into a thousand pieces

and keep whatever's inside, inside. Smashing it doesn't keep it inside. If anything, that's going to let the spirits out. A demon appears in the ball. He's like, let me out, Rory. You're like, smash it. No, don't smash it. Keep it intact.

I like turned to look at the ball. I'm like, smash it immediately. You're like, what was it? I saw the ghoulish face of a pale victorian child looking back at me you're like that was your own reflection in the ball all right let's get into the multi-step bullet point guide of how to use this thing let's go if you don't have a crystal ball at home you know make one roll a bunch of tinfoil into a ball i don't try that but give it a shot why not all right step one make sure your crystal ball is cleaned before you start

all right we f*** that because there's fingerprints all over it it's a little gross i put it so close to my eye it touched my eyeball and now my eyeball is really blinky so i'll get a little rub with my jacket okay there you go. Yeah, because now that I'm talking about it, I'm like, that's also a thing I've seen, is people polishing crystal balls. Yeah. All right.

Step two, place your crystal ball in front of you and sit in front of it at a comfortable distance. I'd say this is comfortable. Sorted. Step three, relax your body and your mind and focus on your breath. Okay, can do. My eye's a little sore though because as I mentioned, I pushed it against the ball and now I don't know what happened, but I think my eyeball is crystallized. It's getting, but yeah, we can move on. We can move on.

Okay, now this is where I might hand the, I'll read it out and I can hand the actions over to you because it says after a couple of minutes place your hands on the ball yeah see now I feel like you're getting me to do all the crazy shit that is gonna risk my life no no no no one's risking anyone what where did you hear in the story bud where'd you hear that it was like life-threatening the next step is gonna be like prick your finger with just enough blood to cover the ball. And I'm like, all right, so I have to do

all the bad shit? No, no, no. Swear allegiance to the lord of the balls. I'm like, I don't want to do this. All right, I'll put my hands on the ball

if you're fine. Sucker. Place your hands on the ball. Your soul belongs to the ball now. What? I barely touched it. The ball's alive. You're in the ball. I look barely touched it the ball's alive you're in the ball i look around i'm tiny

his voice has gone tiny you just continue the podcast and you're like anyway i think we can go straight to conclusions and the other voice is just like, good idea, kid. Thanks for listening, everyone. Head on over to Patreon. You hear in the background a little? Ding, ding, ding, ding. Guys, I'm in the ball.

It's like, yeah, we know. It's so clear. All right, my hands are on the ball. Focus on sending your energy towards the ball. Good energy, bad energy? What do you got? An abundance of one. Okay.

That I'm actually looking to offload. All right. Sure, this could work. Yeah, f*** it. Let's go negative energy on this thing. Keep this connection for a minute or two. A minute or two? What kind of thoughts are going through your mind as you try and channel bad energy into this ball?

Just everyone that's ever wronged me in my life. Okay. I'm just thinking about that every time people... Well, don't think of me, because I don't want my consciousness to end up in the ball. You're going in the ball, brother. I might as well call you f***ing Pikachu. You're about to be in this ball in 45 seconds.

Carry you on my belt. Pikachu is the one Pokemon who notoriously won't go in the ball. That's his whole thing. He refuses to go in the ball. You're refusing to go in my ball, you son of a b***h. Alright, negative energy, negative energy,

negative energy. Okay, s***. We do have a purpose for this. They say, ask a question by either speaking it aloud or sending it out into the world or visualizing it. Okay. So what's like your heart's deepest desire that you want to know? That's a big question. I don't know if I want to publicly announce that.

I mean, like I was saying, you don't have to. I guess you could channel it in. We don't need to i want to publicly announce that you know i mean you know and i'm like i say you don't have to i guess you could channel it in you know we don't need to know i get it it's like a birthday wish right if you say it out loud it might not come true yeah is that the rules of the ball though no they're saying you can ask it out loud i gotta say it they insist they actually insist all right i got an important question i've been thinking about for a long time. Oh, you want to share with us? That was crazy. Yeah. Okay.

Where's my iPad? What? Where's my iPad? I left it on... Are you asking me or the... The ball. The ball. You don't know, do you?

No. Okay, good. You think the ball knows where your iPad is? You said it can show me shit, right? I left it on a bus like three weeks ago. I haven't seen it since. It wasn't handed in. Maybe it can show me where it ended up.

Yeah, it's going to show you somebody's living room because a guy stole it. And you won't know where that is. That would explain all the Amazon charges I've been getting this week. Fine. That's a fine question. Let's roll with that.

All right, it's time. Oh, you know what? Let's ask about an upcoming show on our tour that we're going to be doing in the US and the UK. Okay. Let's ask what will be the best show of the tour. All right. I want to find out.

All right, it's time. Move your hands away. Okay. Now, gaze at the crystal ball, but don't hyper-focus. Instead, let your vision relax and your mind to stay clear and open. It's making my eyes freak out, Kit.

I did read that online, that people were like, they were like, think of those optical illusions where you need to make your eyes relax. Yeah yeah that's almost the energy you need to bring it's doing weird stuff kit i'm not even lying this is weird it's doing weird stuff to my eyes it's not just the blinking thing because you touched it with your eye no this is this is kind of trippy this is trippy in a weird way wow this is honestly a lot more than i thought was gonna happen how how long do i look at this for as long as it takes can i stop i feel like i'm in the ball are you seeing a location yeah are you seeing los angeles

anything that might indicate a location los angeles glasgowelfast yeah keep talking about the tour locations Chicago Somerville London Tickets available that this paranormal life calm. You know what I'll say one thing It's real say one thing about the crystal ball that shit that shit gets smoky ball that shit that shit gets smoky that's i gotta break here i'm breaking from the ball i gotta break from the ball that was getting real weird man that was getting that's very strange that is very very strange whether that's kind of like an optical illusion or your eyes going weird it literally does fog in from the sides and like become only the middle

point that you can see and then your eyes start to kind of freak out almost like a camera trying to find focus but it doesn't know what it's looking at right you know so it's like yeah it's kind of trippy rory snapped out of it like bilbo baggins after he's after he tried to snatch the ring it's like oh i don't know what came over me. That was genuinely really weird because then you look back at it now and like the fogginess is gone. It's so strange. Wow.

Wow. Well, I'm really glad we did that then. I feel like... Sorry, I can't stop looking at the ball now. I mean, the guy does say, look, any images that come through our messages, they may not be clear. They may not be crystal clear.

They might be hazy or just kind of pictures in your mind. I mean, a foggy city? Are any of the cities that we're performing in? San Francisco, famously foggy. Really? Yeah, the fog hits the golden gateing Golden Gate Bridge for some reason, and it's fogged up. I don't know, dude.

That could have been it. Okay, so we might have to, I mean, we've got to wait a little while to see if it all comes true. San Francisco, you're going to have to, it's pretty apt because this case is set in San Francisco, but you guys are going to have to bring the energy and make Rory's premonition come true. Jesus Christ, that was one of the weirdest things we've done a lot of in-person experiments on this podcast

we've used a ouija board we've used a voodoo doll we use the aura glasses we tried to summon a demon once at a live show this is the first time we've ever used anything on this podcast that's kind of me up a little bit do you think you could finish the episode or are we okay? I don't know. I'm kind of like now half a cross-eyed now. I'm like talking to Kit but looking in the ball. The ball stays with us. I know we sometimes give this s*** away to listeners. The ball stays here. I'm taking this home with me often we where's my iPad where is my iPad often we raffle stuff on Patreon

yeah from the studio this might be too heavy so I think you're in luck but I would love to raffle like a maybe a smaller crystal ball maybe we could sign

some small part of it this thing's weird man I'm not over this alright come on we've got to stay in the room to finish this episode but you know hopefully maybe by the end of the episode uh rory might have maybe if any more images come to mind he can share them with us i pumped so much negative energy into this thing it's like a 4k hd tv you can see everything crystal clear well the crystal ball might not have right away off the bat shown rory where his ipad is but i thought in theory if we want to test the abilities of crystal balls let's just look at the future predictions of people who

have been using crystal balls for a long time. Sure. Thankfully for us, one of the most famous mystics of all time, Nostradamus, was a big scrying guy and he used a magic mirror to predict the future. He was a scry guy? He was a French medieval astrologer, originally studying as a doctor, but became fascinated by the occult sciences and paranormal. And he famously published over 6,000 prophecies. We've talked a tiny bit about

him in the past, and we could probably do a whole episode on him. But what we need to know right now is did he actually accurately predict the future? I'll read you a couple of his greatest hits and let you decide. Okay. The blood of the just will be demanded of London, burnt by fire in the year 66. And sure enough, about a hundred years later, the great fire of London happened in 1666. Wow. God damn. That is specific.

The only problem is, he also said in the same prediction after that The ancient lady will fall from her high place and many of the same sect will be killed Hardly anyone died in the fire of London, so I don't think anyone really knows what that means But, you know, it feels like that's a 50% win there Yeah Alright, let me give you one more The great man will be struck down in the day by a thunderbolt. An evil deed foretold by the bearer of a petition.

Does that ring any historical bells for you? No, but my world history is also terrible, so... Many connect this one to the assassination of JFK. Oh, can I hear the premonition again? A great man will be struck down by a thunderbolt. Okay. I see it. Yeah, sure.

But the problem is he didn't exactly put a date on this one. So, you know, JFK was assassinated approximately 400 years later after this prediction. So, and he wasn't the first or last person uh to be shot right uh in that time so uh and i guess he did say an evil deed foretold by the bearer of a petition you know i think the the idea was the shooter had uh sent death threats things like that right um all right we don't we don't have time to go through 6 000 of these you get an idea of the flavor exactly as you said these things are kind of vague but it does go to show that prophecies the idea sounds really cool but you do forget that this whole thing of like

looking into the spirit realm using a crystal ball to predict the future. It's not a computer. It doesn't give dates, times, names, coordinates. It's kind of all fuzzy and woolly and is made of metaphors. Yeah, yeah. You know, it's an interesting concept, this idea of trying to predict the future, because we as humans are kind of obsessed with it. You know, the method in which we do it, though, has just changed a lot over time. You know, there are entire businesses that exist today just to forecast the future. Absolutely. Forecasting is a huge business. Financial forecasting, environmental forecasting. Trend forecasting.

Trend forecasting. Now, sure, it may involve more analytics and numbers and statistics and research, but it's just a different method of trying to predict the future. And you could say that maybe there's a higher success rate of the current methods, but hey, I'm not going to start criticizing the people who were looking into crystal balls to try and predict the future. You're essentially trying to do the same thing. You know, the crystal ball reminds me a lot of my own love of tarot cards and we've talked we've done entire episodes on tarot cards before right the way i used to explain tarot cards to the skeptical was like look tarot cards basically say you ever thought about this bud right you flip over a card and it's like uh death you ever thought about that

and you're like oh shit actually uh my own mortality that's quite a big topic and then it's like what about fortune what about riches you ever thought about that bud and you're like ah that's also an interesting idea yeah you it creates like you know whenever you do a reading and it gives you four cards in sequence of your past, present and future. It basically is, it's a tool for self-reflection. It's like, hey, what if your past included the concept of new beginnings? And then it starts a process of self-reflection. I'm starting to think the crystal ball might have similar vibes where you kind of look into it and you relax your eyes and maybe it starts a kind of psychological process where your brain wanders to interesting

places and shows you things about yourself or your situation you know that is not to be taken too literally that it's not going to show you a 4k youtube feed of your future. Yeah, if these are all just techniques to think about the greater questions in life, then I'm all for it. That's why I love fortune cookies. Not just for the cookie. Another great, I mean, a paranormal device you can eat. I'm in.

Hard cut to me in the medieval times sitting on the right- hand side of a king And it's like Why Sir Rory tell me about tomorrow's battle Will we be victorious And I'm like Just a second king I gotta open a little thing first

Alright Do you mind if I eat the cookie First before I read the fortune I just don't want to go to waste If you must Alright I don't know how he can eat so many of these He's had 25 tonight alone.

Good things come to those who wait. So I guess, I guess maybe not tonight. Let's go tomorrow. Why are you here? I can open the cookies. Just give me the bag of cookies. No, no, it's the way you open it

and it's the whole thing that it has to be done by sacred hands. I think you just like eating cookies. You know, because of the format of this paranormal life, trying to find out whether stuff is really paranormal or not, we obviously fall into black and white camps. Is something real? Is it not? But there is always a third option. You know, here that crystal balls were really taken seriously and used for cool spiritual religious reasons for a really long time but have also been adopted by modern con men who explicitly claim that they can perform paranormal

feats right using them today let me end today's story by giving you an example our friend from earlier alexander the man who knows was an unbelievably talented performer and magician and as i'm about to show you, he was also a brilliant businessman and an insane person. Oh dear, this is where I was worried we were headed. He was selling crystal balls. Okay, there we go. He had an insane merch business. He ran a warehouse with six full-time employees just packaging crystal balls, cards, stones, and other paranormal items to be sent all over the country. So he's not that special.

If anyone can just have the ball. It's the ball that's special. I think the idea is he's like, hey, look how sick I am with the ball. I'm a genius. The ball is just like a band. It's like a Metallica t-shirt. It's like, you came to the show, buy the ball. That's right.

He was like the guy that went to everyone's high school when they were kids to show them yo-yos. And then everyone bought yo-yos thinking they'd be as good as the guys who sell the yo-yos. And it turns out they're really hard to use and they got tangled up. They're hard as shit to use. They were. It's said that during his career, he earned around $4 million. Holy shit. As much as $200 million in today's money. Oh my God. This guy was the Jay-Z of the paranormal. No one knows how many times he was married, but estimates are between 11 times and 14 times. Wow. A guy who can see the future

shouldn't be divorced that many times. That's all I'll say. Hoover said he got divorced. At one point, he just came out and said he killed four guys once. He's like, look, the balls are going to tell you at some point, so I'm going to get ahead of it.

I killed four guys. Some of you have been calling me saying you know where i buried the bodies so because the balls have been telling you so i'm gonna get ahead of it this is this was the 1916 version of like the notes app apology uh tweet i just need to get ahead of the allegations uh i killed four dudes in06, he was on trial for stealing 50 grand from an oil baron and then fleeing in a speedboat filled with bootleg liquor. What? One time, a guy tried to mug him in the street and he just shot him dead. Oh my God.

I'm still not over the speedboat. I don't even think they had speedboats in 1906. He retired at age 43 and allegedly spent his retirement hunting, fishing, and taking photos of naked women. All right. Consensually, hopefully. Not through the ball.

Yeah. What I'm learning from all this, Rory, is we have an upcoming tour in October, too. I think we could steal some ideas. Not the criminal ideas from this guy. What do you want to steal from him? His tours were sold out for weeks. Right. We need to do some crystal ball shit.

Yeah. Well, hey, the crystal ball already seems like it told me that the san francisco show was going to be great and by that i hope it means that every show is going to be great but i know what you're saying we are selling some cool exclusive merch at the shows maybe we should be selling something that is expensive and costs like a grant you know right some real real high quality paranormal stuff. We could do that kind of like charity auction stuff where we sell like dinner with Rory. Right.

Yeah. A night with Rory, yeah. A night with Rory, which is bowling, smoking a joint out the back alley of the bowling alley, drinking three Coronas and going to sleep. Calling it a night. Look, obviously, if our case today was just on Alexander, it would be a very quick conclusion.

But I only tell you his story because it's wild to see Crystal Ball's early ancient real beginnings versus kind of what they've become today yeah it's true i mean i'm still kind of impressed that they're around today i would have thought it's something that had died out by now it's pretty cool i i was googling them researching them obviously for this case and i think you're right i mean i guess what we've got here is just made out of glass but um there are like historic crystal balls out there in the world. There's a cool one in a museum somewhere

that I can't remember. And it's like, it's a true like solid quartz crystal ball. So it is truly crystal. Yeah, I wouldn't have thought a ball made of, you know, quartz or some kind of real pure crystal would be transparent. Let me show it to you. Yeah, please do i mean check

out this one from the smithsonian museum uh that belonged to an 1800s chinese empress holy shit that's cool that's made with real crystal yeah oh my god oh this thing is sick it's on a very cool stand as well, which is really half the battle. Where did you say that one is? In a museum? The Smithsonian? I'm sorry, this one's in the Penn Museum, the University of Pennsylvania Museum. Oh, I got confused. The Smithsonian is allegedly home to the largest one in the world. Damn. Rory, at the end of every episode of This Paranormal Life,

we have to come down on a yes or a no. Is the case we've covered truly paranormal or not? What do you think on the topic of crystal balls? You know, it's one that I didn't have a lot of knowledge of before we went into today's case. And I think I was surprised to get any kind of reaction from gazing into the ball. Only problem being it's hard to put that past being just kind of an optical illusion. The fact I'm looking into this

big trippy magnifying glass that is kind of taking the light around it and bending it in magnificent ways. I think it's an interesting part of, you know, paranormal predictions, something we don't talk about a lot. We talk about people who have been able to predict the future in dreams, who have been able to predict it through one way or another through visions. But not often we talk about objects that can predict the future. So this was a cool one to kind of hear more about the history of it and why it's used and how it's been used in the past. hear more about the history of it and why it's used and how it's been used in the past i mean will we is this a proper example and and investigation that we've done today if as you say this one is made of glass how integral is the crystal to the process of being able to predict the future yeah it's kind of interesting it's like the the harder you think about it the less it kind

of makes sense that like what weirdly in all of this, the actual material it's made out of or any of that, none of that even comes up. I mean, maybe back in the day, I wouldn't be surprised if there was beliefs about what it was made from, the energy that was possessed in the stones or the crystal that created the ball.

Honestly, that didn't come up much whenever I was researching it. It seems to be more just the nature of the actual thing and your relationship to it when you look at it. As you say, whether it's optical illusion or not,

that is the paranormal bit. Yeah, I mean, we know that crystals are a big thing in the world of the paranormal and the supernatural. There are people that believe that all types of different crystals have different effects, that there's energy fields, a whole load of stuff that we might get into

on an upcoming episode of This Paranormal Life. But you're right. In everything that we've read today, the actual crystal part itself, it wasn't even really mentioned in the process of how to see shit in the future or get visions no and i should say like i said earlier the whole process of scrying the material seems to be totally unimportant if you remember you can just look at a bowl of water yeah and that's good enough they said you could look at your own eyelids you just close your eyes all right that's crazy so you know the crystal is the coolest and most fun but it doesn't seem

to be that important yeah it's about you know it's not about how you get there it's about getting there i've definitely looked at the bottom of an empty pint glass and thought about the future before maybe that's my version of it i thought about the present too specifically what happened in the past for me to get to here uh i think you know the fact that the one guy who was really pioneering the movement turned out to be a maniac con man killer uh kind of a legend it's no not a legend a bad man a criminal and a con man as i said so i think if uh if we're taking him into the equation today uh based off of that and our own experiment i think unfortunately it's going to be a no from me this week yeah it's a bit

of a mixed bag i think crystal balls uh have immense cultural historical spiritual value they seem uh scrying seems fantastic and interesting and useful, I don't think it's paranormal in the sense that we're talking about today, that you're actually going to predict the future accurately right here and now. That's just today I'm coming down on. I'm open to, I want to go to someone who knows how to use one of these things.

I want to see how it can be done in a professional manner. I'm willing to have my opinion changed. So I guess let us know if you've ever been to someone who uses a crystal ball for scrying or you have one yourself and you've seen some crazy shit. That's it. I would say there's probably a lot of great, you know, people like tarot card readers, palm readers, modern witches. I'd say there's a lot of people out there who use this stuff all the time and could explain it to us even better. But I just wanted to give you a bit of the history

and check one out for ourselves. Let us know what you think, of course, about all this, thisparanormallifepodcast at gmail.com. That's the place to send submissions for episodes we should cover. We should really do an episode on fortune cookies. I wonder if there's some crazy stories from people

who are like, my fortune cookie came true. And we can read them all, buy like an entire box of fortune cookies and go through a bunch of them on the podcast and see which one we think is going to come true. That would be fun. I'll look into that. That'd be a funny episode.

Like we said, we're on tour this October. If you want to come to the San Francisco show and see if the crystal ball prediction is true, you can do it. Thisparanormallife.com is where you can get tickets to all our tour dates at the time of recording. I don't know if any have sold out by the time you're listening to this.

I can check on the ball. Oh, you seem pretty confident about all this. Where's my iPad? You're getting distracted. I'm sorry, I forgot. What was the question we were going to ask? Don't you have, like, find my iPad and get, like, you should be able to just look it up? No, I can't.

All right. All right. We need the crystal ball. You could take this one home. He locked me out. Whoever got it locked me out. The crystal ball is saying there are still some tickets available well that seems like a pretty safe guess yeah

on the part of the crystal ball i'm following the approach of the con men from the past who all had ambiguous predictions the crystal ball says there may be some tickets available for some shows so so go to thisparanormallife.com forward slash tour and get yours today. And of course, patreon.com forward slash thisparanormallife, the link to which is in the description, is the home of all the bonus content.

The other five podcasts a month that are exclusive to our patrons, they go up there every single week. And at the end of an episode, that is when we like to shout out those who are on the shout out tier on Patreon. Will we get into it? Let's do it. Thank you very much to Pia Skagfjord.

Pia Pia wouldn't want to be. Pia decided to see if they could tell their own future. And within three seconds was inside the ball. Completely trapped inside the ball. That's crazy. It's a lot. It's a lot. I don't know how they're still managing to listen to the podcast.

I'm glad they found a way. Maybe their iPhone is on the outside. They happen to still have their phone. Yeah, whatever it is. Yeah, maybe the phone's inside the ball with them. I don't know. But good luck to you, Pia. I hope you get out soon.

Get out soon. To our brothers on the inside. Thanks also to Jeremiah Strand. Jeremiah Stranded is what they call him. Because, you know, similar to that little son of a bitch in Home Alone, his family just left for Christmas holidays one day and left Jeremiah behind. Oh, no way.

Yeah, and he called and was like, Mom, Dad, you forgot me. And they were like, Oh, oh, that's so sad. And they were like, Shit, he forgot he has our phone number. Weird response. Oh, that's so sad.

Yeah, yeah. Not like, holy shit. Yeah. Yeah, because in the movie, the parents were like, Oh my God, we have to go home. They actually realized Kevin didn't need to call them. They were just like, they just realized, obviously.

Yeah, because you're missing a kid. It's bad if you have to call them for them to realize. So Jeremiah, I'm sure your parents care about you and they're going to come home eventually. Sure. But they might have left on purpose. Thanks, Bob. Bob, are you a builder? Because a lot of the infrastructure

in the paranormal commune is in critical condition. Right. The word structural integrity gets thrown around a lot these days, mostly because there's none of it in the commune. And we're in dire need of someone who has even basic engineering skills to be able to rebuild some of these facilities so if you could bring some tools uh we'd really appreciate

it thanks to caitlin spetz yeah if it isn't baity katie katie's a great person to take with you on any kind of cryptid hunting expeditions because uh she's just great bait you know if it if it's kind of like... You shouldn't say that bit. I don't know if she's listening to this. It's fine. She is. She's been waiting for her shout out for weeks. We're all in this together. We're going to find this creature.

Katie, why don't you go over there? Why don't you go over there just by the entrance to that cave and we'll look over here from a distance and just check it out katie and katie do you mind if i just drizzle a little olive oil onion some salt just to you know put this apple in your mouth thanks to kyle hill you've heard of the mile high club the kyle high club is when you get naked on a red eye and get tased and arrested by the on-flight security.

So is that something that happened to Kyle? Oh, yeah. Okay, so it's not really a challenge or something you can do. It's just what happened to him when he got too drunk on a flight. I don't know if he even drinks, honestly. I think he just didn't want to get to his final destination, so he had to just pull a stunt. That's one way to do it. Thanks lastly, but not leastly today, to Alan Embry.

Alan, I don't ember you. I'm not emberious of your situation, because you're in a ball. Alan, I know you might not have realized it yet. You're confused, you're scared. This is the strangest greenhouse you've ever been in before but it's a crystal ball and that's where you're going to be spending i think eternity until kit and i find you and smash you out on the floor so i'd say just get comfy just try and relax uh keep

listening to the podcast and uh you know we'll we'll uh i mean we're not really looking right now we got a lot on but at some point we'll we'll come find you. It's like prison. Just do push-ups. Get in the best shape of your life. We'll get you out soon. Knock out the biggest genie in the courtyard. And it's prison rules. You'll be fine. Thank you, Alan.

Thank you, everyone we've shouted out. Hope you have enjoyed this investigation into all things Crystal Balls. We are, of course, going to be back with another mysterious and spooky episode on Tuesday and back with an after party on Friday and bonus episodes over at patreon.com forward slash this part of my life

with other stuff. We will see you very soon. Rory, anything to say? What is up with your voice? I can't take my eyes off the crystal ball, man. It's freaking me out. I've barely looked at you this entire episode. I am deep in the ball right now.

I am balls deep in this crystal baby. Let's just end it. Because we need to put a sheet over the ball so we both can break the spell. Right. That would be a smart thing to do. So we'll see you. I'm going to smash it.

Smash it up. I'm smashing it right now. Let's go. Yeah!