WEBVTT - Ghost in the Machine, Part 2: Spooky Week #2 0:00:01.720 --> 0:00:08.600 Cool Zone Media. 0:00:10.200 --> 0:00:15.080 Welcome back to It Could Happen. Here's Spooky Week special presentation. 0:00:15.960 --> 0:00:19.520 Ghost in the Machine, a first person account of the 0:00:19.560 --> 0:00:24.439 twenty twenty three Oregon Ghost Conference. I'm Garrison Davis. In 0:00:24.480 --> 0:00:27.159 the last episode, I introduced you to the hauntings of 0:00:27.240 --> 0:00:31.240 Seaside and the first day of the conference. But now 0:00:31.280 --> 0:00:34.680 descending into the subsequent two days, we're gonna get into 0:00:34.680 --> 0:00:38.640 a lot more classes and events that started to reveal 0:00:38.880 --> 0:00:45.000 the cultural underpinnings of the Ghost Conference attendees. The cost 0:00:45.040 --> 0:00:48.120 of entry for the conference was pretty low, but every 0:00:48.200 --> 0:00:51.839 class or ghost hunt was an additional fee, with classes 0:00:51.960 --> 0:00:55.000 ranging from fifteen to twenty five bucks each and the 0:00:55.000 --> 0:00:59.720 ghost investigations a lofty thirty five dollars per ticket, so 0:00:59.840 --> 0:01:02.720 I had to pick and choose my classes carefully. There 0:01:02.720 --> 0:01:06.000 were a lot of classes with the word energy in 0:01:06.040 --> 0:01:09.959 the title. I mostly avoided those, but the class topics 0:01:10.080 --> 0:01:16.560 ranged from the afterlife to connecting with spirits, reiki, crystals, tarot, mediumship, 0:01:16.800 --> 0:01:21.319 and psychic abilities. There were a few classes on witchcraft 0:01:21.319 --> 0:01:24.319 and occult magic, but that was definitely not the general 0:01:24.400 --> 0:01:27.759 vibe of the conference or most attendees. In fact, there 0:01:27.800 --> 0:01:31.240 was a lot of hostility to ritual magic and esoteric 0:01:31.280 --> 0:01:35.480 practices throughout the conference from the more new ag energy 0:01:35.520 --> 0:01:40.319 working speakers, mostly on the basis that witchcraft is linked 0:01:40.360 --> 0:01:45.120 to dark forces. Just because someone operates on a form 0:01:45.160 --> 0:01:48.600 of magical thinking does not mean that they take kindly 0:01:48.680 --> 0:01:52.240 to arcane practices, a case in point to the historical 0:01:52.360 --> 0:01:56.040 witch hunts led by the Christians. The Love and Light 0:01:56.320 --> 0:02:00.560 new Age psychics, along with the paranormal investigator types, made 0:02:00.640 --> 0:02:05.200 up the majority of both attendees and class instructors. On 0:02:05.320 --> 0:02:08.720 Saturday morning, while my friend Elaine was doing a hypnosis class, 0:02:09.120 --> 0:02:11.160 I took a really fun class on how to learn 0:02:11.280 --> 0:02:15.360 remote viewing. The instructor was a very jovial woman, and 0:02:15.400 --> 0:02:18.320 it was her opinion that remote viewing is just a 0:02:18.400 --> 0:02:21.360 skill that can be trained, not linked to any innate 0:02:21.400 --> 0:02:25.200 psychic powers. With just a bit more practice, I'll be 0:02:25.280 --> 0:02:29.040 blowing up goats with my mind in no time. I 0:02:29.120 --> 0:02:32.240 snuck in towards the end of the hypnotism class, just 0:02:32.280 --> 0:02:36.320 in time for the group hypnosis session, where I ended 0:02:36.400 --> 0:02:41.079 up astral projecting into a Portland anarchist book. Fair taking 0:02:41.120 --> 0:02:45.000 classes offered an intimate look at each presenter's own unique 0:02:45.080 --> 0:02:48.840 view of reality. Almost everyone at the conference was operating 0:02:48.880 --> 0:02:53.040 on their own complete cosmology of how ghosts or paranormal 0:02:53.200 --> 0:02:56.760 entities work. There's two classes I want to focus on. 0:02:57.240 --> 0:03:01.120 Each had very different class descriptions, but ended up piggybacking 0:03:01.160 --> 0:03:04.480 off each other in some really interesting ways. The first 0:03:04.480 --> 0:03:09.480 one was titled The Power of Entity Extraction. The instructor 0:03:09.639 --> 0:03:11.840 was a blonde, white woman who referred to herself as 0:03:11.919 --> 0:03:16.320 a quote unquote shamanic practitioner. The class was about how 0:03:16.440 --> 0:03:20.959 quote unresolved trauma can be an invitation to ethnic hitchhikers, 0:03:21.360 --> 0:03:24.919 and how entities mimic signs of mental illness and change 0:03:24.960 --> 0:03:30.560 behavior unquote. The other class was titled The Warrior Angel 0:03:30.680 --> 0:03:34.040 Within You. It sought to help you find out if 0:03:34.080 --> 0:03:38.000 you secretly had the soul of a warrior angel. Spoiler, 0:03:38.040 --> 0:03:40.880 everyone in the class did, and it promised to teach 0:03:40.920 --> 0:03:43.640 you how to activate your connection between yourself and your 0:03:43.640 --> 0:03:49.480 angelic consciousness to unlock your own angel powers. So, while 0:03:49.520 --> 0:03:54.240 having many operational differences, the Warrior Angel class and the 0:03:54.400 --> 0:03:58.000 Entity Extraction class were both very set in their own 0:03:58.240 --> 0:04:02.680 unique ontologies, and in order for their respective operative metaphysics 0:04:02.680 --> 0:04:06.280 to work, they needed to be extremely dogmatic about their 0:04:06.280 --> 0:04:10.640 own ontology. Both instructors also had a very similar story 0:04:10.680 --> 0:04:14.200 of some past trauma leading to a mystical encounter which 0:04:14.240 --> 0:04:18.880 then awakened some spiritual insight and hidden power. For the 0:04:19.000 --> 0:04:21.440 entity extraction class, it was quote, I was a very 0:04:21.440 --> 0:04:23.640 sickly kid. I had all these things that were wrong 0:04:23.680 --> 0:04:26.440 with me, and then I realized I had dark entities 0:04:26.480 --> 0:04:29.120 attached to me. But I could learn how to extract 0:04:29.120 --> 0:04:33.520 and remove them myself. Versus the Warrior Angel class, the 0:04:33.560 --> 0:04:36.680 person's backstory was quote when I was nineteen years old, 0:04:36.720 --> 0:04:39.160 I got into a bad motorcycle accident. I was clinically 0:04:39.160 --> 0:04:42.080 dead for two minutes, received a brain injury, and then 0:04:42.080 --> 0:04:47.440 I started seeing angels unquote. Both women's personal journeys seemed 0:04:47.440 --> 0:04:50.320 like they helped them deal with their own traumas. In 0:04:50.360 --> 0:04:53.600 the case of the Shamanic Practitioner woman, she regained her 0:04:53.640 --> 0:04:57.360 health and now has a seemingly successful life and business 0:04:58.000 --> 0:05:02.880 of removing entities and quota quote soul coaching. The Warrior 0:05:02.920 --> 0:05:06.040 Angel woman is a nurse and finds time to write 0:05:06.080 --> 0:05:09.760 a lot of books, all while murdering demons and expelling 0:05:09.800 --> 0:05:13.960 the forces of darkness. While only the entity extraction class 0:05:14.000 --> 0:05:17.839 build itself as having to do with entity removal. Both 0:05:17.880 --> 0:05:20.520 classes were incredibly focused on the idea that there are 0:05:20.839 --> 0:05:26.080 malevolent spirits or demons everywhere in the entity class. These 0:05:26.400 --> 0:05:29.800 dark entities are out looking for people with quote unquote 0:05:30.120 --> 0:05:33.760 soul fractures due to past trauma and are just like 0:05:34.080 --> 0:05:39.320 waiting to leap onto people and dig themselves into their minds. Similarly, 0:05:39.800 --> 0:05:44.400 according to the Warrior Angel class, demons are everywhere. Demons 0:05:44.400 --> 0:05:47.919 live around and inside people, but are only visible to 0:05:48.000 --> 0:05:52.719 those with angelic sight. The entity extraction class laid out 0:05:52.880 --> 0:05:57.320 two main types of beings, lost or benign entities that 0:05:57.360 --> 0:06:00.440 are just trapped in the third dimension, and as they're 0:06:00.440 --> 0:06:03.640 trying to pass on to quote unquote the light, they 0:06:03.720 --> 0:06:07.960 end up attaching onto a human versus the overtly dark 0:06:08.200 --> 0:06:11.800 or demonic entities which seek to feed off people's pain 0:06:11.880 --> 0:06:16.039 and suffering. We learned that benign entities can just be 0:06:16.120 --> 0:06:19.520 lost human souls. For instance, if someone is taking a 0:06:19.520 --> 0:06:23.560 lot of medication or is going through chemotherapy, when they die, 0:06:23.920 --> 0:06:26.080 their soul won't be able to cross over to the 0:06:26.160 --> 0:06:28.960 light and it'll become lost. According at least to this 0:06:29.160 --> 0:06:33.920 shamanic practitioner, she claimed to be trained in a special 0:06:34.040 --> 0:06:39.040 technique to remove entities. It involves quote ethertically locking your 0:06:39.080 --> 0:06:42.640 wrists to draw the entity into a double terminated crystal, 0:06:43.320 --> 0:06:45.680 at which point it can then be sent into the 0:06:45.760 --> 0:06:51.800 light unquote. Since the shaman woman wasn't actually offering ways 0:06:51.839 --> 0:06:55.320 for other people to protect themselves from entities, the only 0:06:55.400 --> 0:06:58.400 thing she had to offer was her own worldview that 0:06:58.520 --> 0:07:02.200 leans towards a pair of where dark spirits are waiting 0:07:02.200 --> 0:07:07.200 to latch on and cause mental illness. She talked about 0:07:07.200 --> 0:07:10.920 how a man with mood fluctuations paid her money to 0:07:11.000 --> 0:07:14.320 remove a quote unquote nine foot minute taur that was 0:07:14.360 --> 0:07:17.800 attached to him. At least in the Warrior Angel system, 0:07:17.880 --> 0:07:21.200 you could eventually gain some form of agency when you 0:07:21.280 --> 0:07:24.400 merge with your Warrior Angel, but then you would spend 0:07:24.400 --> 0:07:26.880 the rest of your life recognizing demons in human form 0:07:27.280 --> 0:07:29.360 and working with the Legion of Light to banish them 0:07:29.360 --> 0:07:33.400 to the darkness, Whereas in the entity attraction class, the 0:07:33.480 --> 0:07:36.560 most you could do was just be proactive by quote 0:07:36.640 --> 0:07:41.400 unquote learning ways to identify possible attachments and how your 0:07:41.520 --> 0:07:45.520 lifestyle could be an open invitation to host the unwanted. 0:07:46.440 --> 0:07:50.640 Though she identified herself as a shamanic practitioner, she didn't 0:07:50.680 --> 0:07:54.760 believe you could actually work with spirits. When people asked 0:07:54.760 --> 0:07:57.440 her about their own helper entities that they work with, 0:07:58.040 --> 0:07:59.960 she said that you can never know if a hell 0:08:00.000 --> 0:08:03.920 helper spirit is actually intending to assist you. That is, 0:08:03.960 --> 0:08:06.560 except if you ask an entity if it's of the light, 0:08:07.120 --> 0:08:09.800 it has to answer truthfully. As this was a quote 0:08:09.840 --> 0:08:13.320 unquote universal law. That was the phrase she used. It's 0:08:13.360 --> 0:08:16.560 a quote unquote universal law that if you ask an 0:08:16.640 --> 0:08:20.080 entity if it's of the light, it has to answer truthfully. 0:08:20.240 --> 0:08:20.720 There was no. 0:08:20.760 --> 0:08:24.560 Indication on who wrote this universal law, who enforces this 0:08:24.720 --> 0:08:28.200 universal law, if there's a universal police force making sure 0:08:28.200 --> 0:08:32.080 that the entities are following these rules. None of that 0:08:32.160 --> 0:08:35.560 was explained. But this is a universal law. So that 0:08:35.679 --> 0:08:37.480 is a tip for any of you listeners. If you 0:08:37.520 --> 0:08:39.360 ever meet an entity that you think might be a 0:08:39.400 --> 0:08:42.160 little bit sketchy, just ask if it's of the light. 0:08:42.679 --> 0:08:47.640 It has to answer truthfully. So, despite this universal law business, 0:08:48.200 --> 0:08:51.080 she still discouraged people from trying to work with entities 0:08:51.120 --> 0:08:54.040 in general. She said that if an entity is trying 0:08:54.080 --> 0:08:57.560 to help you, it's probably of the dark. And working 0:08:57.600 --> 0:09:00.720 with any spirits at all will make you more susceptible 0:09:00.920 --> 0:09:05.120 to entity attachment, which is definitely weird because she did 0:09:05.240 --> 0:09:08.559 very specifically try to claim some sort of shamanic lineage, 0:09:09.200 --> 0:09:13.000 and this blanket hostility to spirit really doesn't follow the 0:09:13.040 --> 0:09:16.320 way most shamanic practices work. So I did some digging, 0:09:16.400 --> 0:09:19.120 and it turns out she got her training from a 0:09:19.240 --> 0:09:24.560 controversial quote unquote shamanism school called the Four Winds, which 0:09:24.720 --> 0:09:30.160 repackages New Age of spirituality as quote unquote neo shamanism. 0:09:30.600 --> 0:09:33.400 So even though you shouldn't be in contact with really 0:09:33.520 --> 0:09:37.280 any spirits, according to the shamanic practitioner, in the Warrior 0:09:37.280 --> 0:09:39.640 Angel class, we learned that if you have the soul 0:09:39.720 --> 0:09:44.800 of a warrior Angel, you can quote unquote communicate with ghosts, angels, God, 0:09:45.320 --> 0:09:49.959 the Galactic Federation Council, and the Council of Elders. Now 0:09:50.720 --> 0:09:54.160 I know you're probably wondering what the Galactic Federation Council is, 0:09:54.200 --> 0:09:57.680 because I was too. We never found out. We never 0:09:57.720 --> 0:10:00.079 really got a clue. You had to buy the books 0:10:00.120 --> 0:10:03.679 for that one. The Warrior Angel instructor claims to have 0:10:03.880 --> 0:10:07.760 her own angelic hierarchy that wasn't based on any other system, 0:10:08.160 --> 0:10:12.240 just her own experiences. A Warrior Angel is a quote 0:10:12.640 --> 0:10:15.880 special kind of angel, fully trained in the art of 0:10:15.960 --> 0:10:19.680 war by the Legion of Light, an elite team of 0:10:19.760 --> 0:10:23.640 demon slayers unquote, and no, I don't think she has 0:10:23.679 --> 0:10:28.200 seen the anime. What makes the Warrior Angel special is 0:10:28.200 --> 0:10:31.920 that it can be incarnated in the physical form as 0:10:31.960 --> 0:10:37.080 a human, but only archangels can kill or banish demons 0:10:37.200 --> 0:10:40.880 back to the dark realm. The Warrior Angel can scare 0:10:40.960 --> 0:10:43.800 demons away with their angelic presence, but they can also 0:10:43.880 --> 0:10:46.840 act as spies to inform the Legion of Light as 0:10:46.880 --> 0:10:52.120 to demon whereabouts. Each Warrior Angel has special abilities, usually 0:10:52.320 --> 0:10:56.080 healing or manifesting, as well as the ability to create 0:10:56.240 --> 0:10:59.439 infinity orbs, which can be used for protection or to 0:10:59.559 --> 0:11:02.520 trap ad inside and send it back to the Dark 0:11:02.559 --> 0:11:07.880 realm within the orb. Now you're probably wondering what's in 0:11:07.960 --> 0:11:12.640 infinity orb. We don't know either. We never got a 0:11:12.679 --> 0:11:16.319 good explanation for what an infinity orb is, how to 0:11:16.440 --> 0:11:19.719 make one, how they work. It was very vague. I 0:11:19.720 --> 0:11:22.480 guess that is also in the book. Along with the 0:11:22.520 --> 0:11:28.520 Galactic Federation Council. There are apparently over three million Warrior 0:11:28.559 --> 0:11:31.360 Angels walking the Earth today, most of which have been 0:11:31.400 --> 0:11:34.880 sent to Earth in the past two hundred years because quote, 0:11:35.160 --> 0:11:38.320 the darkness has spread over the Earth, and in the 0:11:38.400 --> 0:11:44.440 last two hundred years, it's really gotten worse unquote. Now, thankfully, I, 0:11:44.679 --> 0:11:47.559 along with everyone else in the class, was informed that 0:11:47.960 --> 0:11:51.640 I'm actually one of these three million warrior Angels. And 0:11:51.840 --> 0:11:57.360 I was told my angel name Araman, whose specialty is communication. 0:12:01.280 --> 0:12:06.720 Oh fucking fuck. Okay, Apparently things on Earth have gotten 0:12:06.760 --> 0:12:09.920 worse enough that, under the command of God, the Legion 0:12:09.920 --> 0:12:13.439 of Light has resorted to killing demons more often because 0:12:13.640 --> 0:12:15.880 more and more of them just keep coming back from 0:12:15.920 --> 0:12:19.400 the dark realm. The lady running the class told us 0:12:19.440 --> 0:12:23.880 that she wasn't just a warrior angel, she was actually 0:12:24.240 --> 0:12:29.280 the archangel Ariel. As the angel Ariel, she said that 0:12:29.320 --> 0:12:32.880 she's killed four thousand demons in the past six years. 0:12:34.160 --> 0:12:37.760 Something that's a little bit disturbing about this is that 0:12:37.800 --> 0:12:41.959 she also explained that in a past life, Ariel got 0:12:41.960 --> 0:12:46.079 in trouble with God because when she was out killing demons, 0:12:46.640 --> 0:12:50.400 she actually was also killing the human host of the demon. 0:12:51.400 --> 0:12:55.640 So the fact that this person whose job is a 0:12:55.760 --> 0:13:00.520 nurse is claimed to have killed four thousand and demons 0:13:00.520 --> 0:13:03.320 in the past six years is maybe a little bit concerning. 0:13:03.559 --> 0:13:07.679 Someone should look into that. The whole Warrior Angel cosmology 0:13:07.800 --> 0:13:12.559 was very rooted in Christian Millenarianism, an apocalyptic end times 0:13:12.640 --> 0:13:17.680 theology where social and political crisises accelerate, leading to a 0:13:17.720 --> 0:13:21.240 holy war between good and evil, resulting in the triumph 0:13:21.280 --> 0:13:24.439 of good and the establishing of a one thousand year 0:13:24.520 --> 0:13:29.360 kingdom of God on Earth before the final judgment. One 0:13:29.400 --> 0:13:32.440 of the darkest parts of the whole weekend for me 0:13:33.280 --> 0:13:35.680 was that there was this one woman who appeared to 0:13:35.679 --> 0:13:38.920 be in her twenties who was very obviously dealing with 0:13:38.960 --> 0:13:42.560 some sort of problem in her life. She talked with 0:13:42.640 --> 0:13:46.440 this Warrior Angel woman for four hours. It was a 0:13:46.480 --> 0:13:48.560 one hour class. We then had a break, we went 0:13:48.600 --> 0:13:51.720 to another class, and then attended the second class, which 0:13:51.760 --> 0:13:56.280 was also an hour. Throughout that entire time, this obviously 0:13:56.360 --> 0:14:00.440 depressed young woman who was dealing with something was talking 0:14:00.480 --> 0:14:03.880 with this person about the Warrior Angel thing, and that 0:14:03.960 --> 0:14:07.480 just felt extremely exploitative, and it was one of the 0:14:07.480 --> 0:14:09.880 things that actually just made me feel the most bad 0:14:09.880 --> 0:14:14.520 about the entire ghost conference. The entity extraction class didn't 0:14:14.559 --> 0:14:17.720 have any information on how we can remove an entity, 0:14:18.240 --> 0:14:21.120 and aside from the second hour, in which the instructor 0:14:21.360 --> 0:14:24.520 came and told us our angel names. The Warrior Angel 0:14:24.520 --> 0:14:26.880 class wasn't actually about how to connect with your angel. 0:14:27.240 --> 0:14:30.120 We never learned how to make a fit in the orbs. Instead, 0:14:30.400 --> 0:14:33.960 both classes were just pitches for the books and services 0:14:34.240 --> 0:14:36.720 of the people teaching them, and the class was a 0:14:36.840 --> 0:14:39.560 chance for them to weave the story of their particular 0:14:39.600 --> 0:14:55.400 worldview and sell it to the class attendees. Saturday night, 0:14:55.520 --> 0:14:59.200 Elayne and I signed up for another ghost investigation. With 0:14:59.320 --> 0:15:02.400 one already under our belt, we felt better prepared to 0:15:02.840 --> 0:15:06.160 yell at blinking lights and converse with the dead. I 0:15:06.240 --> 0:15:09.640 actually really liked this second investigation. It was led by 0:15:09.720 --> 0:15:13.160 a ghost hunting team from Astoria, Oregon, and this time 0:15:13.280 --> 0:15:16.040 it was to take place at the Old Massonic Temple 0:15:16.160 --> 0:15:19.600 in Seaside. The setting was a big part of what 0:15:19.760 --> 0:15:22.320 up to the cool factor. The building had only been 0:15:22.400 --> 0:15:26.080 vacant since twenty seventeen, but the harsh coastal weather of 0:15:26.120 --> 0:15:30.080 northern Oregon had not been kind to the structure. All Right, 0:15:30.160 --> 0:15:34.080 it is Saturday night, March twenty fifth. We are inside 0:15:34.120 --> 0:15:39.080 the Old Massanic Lodge in the Seaside, Oregon. Right now, 0:15:39.080 --> 0:15:41.320 we're I'm just walking into the big, the big kind 0:15:41.360 --> 0:15:46.400 of ceremony ritual performance room. Once we got to the 0:15:46.440 --> 0:15:50.160 main room upstairs, people began setting up rempods and what 0:15:50.240 --> 0:15:54.440 are essentially motion activated light up cat toys. The idea 0:15:54.480 --> 0:15:57.720 is if some energetic force is passing through, it would 0:15:57.760 --> 0:16:01.120 light up the little catball. About thirty people from the 0:16:01.160 --> 0:16:04.800 ghost hunt crammed into the lodge. The rempods started going 0:16:04.840 --> 0:16:09.160 off like crazy. The investigators had to repeatedly remind the 0:16:09.160 --> 0:16:12.200 ghosts to only touch the lights when answering a question. 0:16:13.000 --> 0:16:16.080 There was a male medium present at this ghost hunt, 0:16:16.440 --> 0:16:20.040 and he remarked as to why there was seemingly so 0:16:20.200 --> 0:16:24.880 much activity. Quote some spirits aren't happy about the women 0:16:25.000 --> 0:16:29.840 being here unquote. At this point, some of the investigators 0:16:29.880 --> 0:16:33.920 got really combative with potential spirits after the woman line 0:16:33.960 --> 0:16:37.480 from the medium. One line was quote, do you want 0:16:37.560 --> 0:16:41.160 to know why there are all these females here? If so, 0:16:41.760 --> 0:16:45.480 give us a green light unquote. This is where the 0:16:45.520 --> 0:16:50.480 ghost hunt basically turned into a weird interrogation once again. 0:16:50.560 --> 0:16:54.280 It became a contest of injecting meaning during these little 0:16:54.560 --> 0:16:57.240 intervals of time in between when the lights flicker. 0:17:01.920 --> 0:17:04.440 Do you think trans people are valid, and then if 0:17:04.440 --> 0:17:05.560 it lights up, that means. 0:17:05.400 --> 0:17:12.120 It's yes, yes, breaking news from seaside, Oregon. Ghosts do 0:17:12.240 --> 0:17:15.280 believe that trans people are valid, although they do not 0:17:15.440 --> 0:17:20.120 understand neo pronouns. Look, I just report the news. At 0:17:20.119 --> 0:17:23.600 this point we changed things up from the regular arguing 0:17:23.640 --> 0:17:27.280 with blinking lights. We did an experiment with the radio 0:17:27.320 --> 0:17:31.639 frequency sweeping spirit Box using what's called the Estis method. 0:17:32.480 --> 0:17:36.040 It combines the spirit box with sensory deprivation to reduce 0:17:36.080 --> 0:17:39.439 the amount of external influence on the person listening to 0:17:39.480 --> 0:17:43.080 the spirit box. One person puts on a blindfold and 0:17:43.160 --> 0:17:46.399 noise canceling headphones plugged into the spirit box so they 0:17:46.400 --> 0:17:49.640 can speak aloud any words coming through the box without 0:17:49.680 --> 0:17:54.119 hearing the questions or comments from other investigators. Obviously, the 0:17:54.160 --> 0:17:57.280 conversation doesn't always line up, but there are often moments 0:17:57.320 --> 0:18:01.399 where it does form a fun synchronicity. I volunteered to 0:18:01.480 --> 0:18:04.240 try out being the human speaker for the spirit box. 0:18:04.880 --> 0:18:07.119 Although I only did it for a few minutes, pretty 0:18:07.200 --> 0:18:09.199 quickly I was able to get into a sort of 0:18:09.320 --> 0:18:13.119 meditative trance estate. The thing about being the one with 0:18:13.240 --> 0:18:17.679 the blindfold and noise canceling headphones pumping radio static directly 0:18:17.720 --> 0:18:21.119 into your ears. Is that in the moment, you have 0:18:21.359 --> 0:18:25.119 no idea what's going on as intended. You only have 0:18:25.240 --> 0:18:27.840 access to one side of the conversation, and if you 0:18:27.880 --> 0:18:30.920 get into a meditative state, it's hard to even remember 0:18:31.040 --> 0:18:34.240 what you've been saying. So I only got to hear 0:18:34.280 --> 0:18:37.600 the full conversation by listening to my recording when putting 0:18:37.600 --> 0:18:41.480 together these episodes. Unfortunately, I can't play most of that 0:18:41.520 --> 0:18:44.800 recording because there's too many random people's voices, but I'll 0:18:44.880 --> 0:18:48.600 narrate a few brief exchanges. One of the first things 0:18:48.600 --> 0:18:53.560 that came through was the word cold. People replied, yeah, 0:18:53.600 --> 0:18:57.560 it's freezing in here. Can you feel cold? I then replied, 0:18:58.320 --> 0:19:05.600 I don't, followed by I exist. After this, apparently someone 0:19:05.760 --> 0:19:08.800 was leaving the room to go downstairs, and I said, 0:19:09.640 --> 0:19:15.160 don't go. I can't follow off. Station people then asked 0:19:15.200 --> 0:19:18.000 the ghost if they knew what the building was used for. 0:19:18.760 --> 0:19:24.640 I replied, you will want to find out. That's the thing. 0:19:25.520 --> 0:19:29.840 Radio calling. People then asked where are you right now? 0:19:30.000 --> 0:19:34.879 Can you tell us? I replied, I don't know lots 0:19:34.880 --> 0:19:39.840 of things. A short time later, I heard stop following 0:19:40.359 --> 0:19:44.560 you too. We've had a cut. I'll play the audio 0:19:44.640 --> 0:19:48.240 of the very final thing. I said, I can't do anymore. 0:19:50.320 --> 0:19:54.680 Stop. You're welcome, ju Ya Stockow. 0:19:55.680 --> 0:19:57.400 So that's when I decided it would be a good 0:19:57.400 --> 0:20:00.160 time to take off the headphones. We had a few 0:20:00.240 --> 0:20:02.600 other exchanges when I was listening to the spirit box, 0:20:02.640 --> 0:20:06.320 but it's all kind of in that style. Apparently, when 0:20:06.359 --> 0:20:08.840 I was hooked up to the spirit box, the rempods 0:20:08.920 --> 0:20:11.440 in the other room were going absolutely berserk. 0:20:12.520 --> 0:20:19.040 Both of these just have been going off, like now 0:20:19.040 --> 0:20:22.000 they're being quiet. 0:20:22.160 --> 0:20:26.240 They've just been doing that interesting for the entire time. 0:20:28.000 --> 0:20:31.600 Not entirely surprising considering the amount of radio waves being 0:20:31.680 --> 0:20:36.439 pumped around the lodge. But after spending about an hour upstairs, 0:20:36.960 --> 0:20:40.399 the group made their way to the lower, more recreational floor. 0:20:40.160 --> 0:20:43.680 Of the temple. All right, we are going downstairs now. 0:20:43.720 --> 0:20:47.920 After going through the entire upstairs, mainly this large room 0:20:47.960 --> 0:20:50.880 and then like the chain rooms where they would store 0:20:50.920 --> 0:20:54.399 their robes and shit. To close off the night, the 0:20:54.480 --> 0:20:58.440 lead investigators pulled out an old Panasonic digital voice recorder 0:20:58.680 --> 0:21:02.360 to try and capture any electronic ghost voices that might 0:21:02.400 --> 0:21:06.119 be trying to communicate. A woman turned on the voice 0:21:06.160 --> 0:21:10.200 activated recording device and asked quote, if any spirits want 0:21:10.200 --> 0:21:14.359 to communicate, please say a word or make a sound unquote, 0:21:14.680 --> 0:21:18.040 And then when the recording was played back after the 0:21:18.040 --> 0:21:22.480 investigator spoke, a large growl was heard on the recording. 0:21:31.480 --> 0:21:34.440 She then asked if the spirit is male, and when 0:21:34.480 --> 0:21:39.720 played back, there was another growl, seemingly in response. More 0:21:39.760 --> 0:21:42.480 people were starting to theorize that the ghosts of the 0:21:42.480 --> 0:21:46.360 Masonic Lodge were angry that there were women in the building. 0:21:47.680 --> 0:21:50.440 A guy then asked some questions into the voice recorder, 0:21:50.720 --> 0:21:53.840 and there was no response from any ghosts in the recording. 0:21:54.680 --> 0:21:57.760 A woman tried asking some of the same questions, quote 0:21:58.480 --> 0:22:01.879 is there an issue about my spirits? Do you not 0:22:02.119 --> 0:22:04.480 want us to be here? Specifically women? 0:22:04.800 --> 0:22:09.960 Unquote? The first query alluded no response, but after the 0:22:10.000 --> 0:22:19.200 second question, another growl was heard. Okay. At the time, 0:22:19.320 --> 0:22:22.240 this was by far the most interesting result of the 0:22:22.280 --> 0:22:26.960 two ghost investigations. We went on to everyone there they 0:22:27.000 --> 0:22:31.760 captured evidence of a genuine ghost in that machine. There 0:22:31.840 --> 0:22:36.119 is an interesting contrast between the progressive ghosts of the 0:22:36.160 --> 0:22:43.480 Spiritualists and their egalitarian afterlife versus the misogynistic ghosts from 0:22:43.520 --> 0:22:49.080 the Freemason Lodge. It's unclear if whatever Afterlife. The Freemason 0:22:49.119 --> 0:22:53.720 Ghosts are In is also home to the abolitionist George Washington. 0:22:54.800 --> 0:22:58.440 Besides the classes and ghost hunts, there were also free 0:22:58.520 --> 0:23:01.800 lectures on the main stage of the convention center. Going 0:23:01.840 --> 0:23:05.040 into the conference, the talk I was most excited about 0:23:05.240 --> 0:23:07.320 was titled AI necronomics. 0:23:08.200 --> 0:23:08.680 This is a. 0:23:08.600 --> 0:23:11.560 Topic I've been pretty interested in the past few years. 0:23:12.320 --> 0:23:16.040 Deep fake learning algorithms have been steadily improving, and with 0:23:16.080 --> 0:23:19.480 the help of skilled VFX artists, AI is able to 0:23:19.600 --> 0:23:24.360 pretty accurately replicate the voice and facial movements of dead celebrities. 0:23:25.480 --> 0:23:31.119 But necromantic technology is interlimited to resurrecting someone's appearance. Some 0:23:31.280 --> 0:23:36.080 AIS are trained to replicate people's expressive thoughts. There's a 0:23:36.119 --> 0:23:40.800 website called The Infinite Conversation. The website plays a never 0:23:41.040 --> 0:23:46.120 ending AI generated conversation between Werner Herzog and Slavoy Jijiak. 0:23:47.000 --> 0:23:50.320 Maybe you were to control and saw on maybe didn't 0:23:50.320 --> 0:23:53.480 touch you enough. I had the feeling that I was 0:23:53.520 --> 0:23:56.400 in the wax Museum, that what I saw was something 0:23:56.480 --> 0:23:58.880 occasionally dis but hollow. 0:23:59.240 --> 0:24:00.680 Like Hora wax figures. 0:24:01.080 --> 0:24:02.800 But yes, it did touch. 0:24:02.680 --> 0:24:06.520 Me every day. More of the conversation is generated by 0:24:06.560 --> 0:24:10.160 an AI language model trained on interviews and the writings 0:24:10.240 --> 0:24:14.320 of each respective speaker. Each time you load the website, 0:24:14.800 --> 0:24:18.320 it reminds you that everything you hear is just the 0:24:18.359 --> 0:24:23.080 hallucinations of a slab of silicon. A couple months before 0:24:23.119 --> 0:24:26.800 the Ghost conference, I was at the Consumer Electronics showcase 0:24:26.960 --> 0:24:30.440 in Las Vegas. There was this booth in the US 0:24:30.520 --> 0:24:33.920 government sponsored section of the event for a company called 0:24:34.119 --> 0:24:38.800 mind Bank AI. I talked with their director of Systems, 0:24:38.880 --> 0:24:43.359 Architecture and Cybersecurity, who used to work for the NSSA. 0:24:44.520 --> 0:24:48.480 Mind Bank seeks to create unique quote unquote digital twins 0:24:48.920 --> 0:24:51.840 by having users that input data about themselves into an 0:24:51.880 --> 0:24:55.600 AI every day. Your digital twin will ask you questions 0:24:55.600 --> 0:24:58.199 about how you're feeling and what you're thinking about, and 0:24:58.280 --> 0:25:00.760 your answers will be used to make a more accurate 0:25:00.880 --> 0:25:05.600 digital copy of yourself. According to mind Bank's website, your 0:25:05.640 --> 0:25:09.040 digital twin will quote learn to think like you by 0:25:09.080 --> 0:25:14.240 analyzing your answers unquote. Their CEO claims that this process 0:25:14.320 --> 0:25:19.320 will eventually help him achieve immortality. The current model of 0:25:19.359 --> 0:25:23.040 this product is being billed as a therapy app, where 0:25:23.040 --> 0:25:25.720 the user talks to their digital twin as you would 0:25:25.800 --> 0:25:28.960 a therapist, and the app responds to here data inputs 0:25:29.000 --> 0:25:32.720 with quote unquote, valuable insight into each answer to understand 0:25:32.800 --> 0:25:38.000 how your mind works using cutting edge cognitive and psycholinguistic analysis. 0:25:39.200 --> 0:25:43.320 But mind Bank's horizons are far beyond a fraught therapy app. 0:25:44.040 --> 0:25:47.119 The real goal is to make autonomous digital replicas of 0:25:47.240 --> 0:25:51.520 people to live on the Internet. A future use case 0:25:51.520 --> 0:25:55.280 for this technology is what mind bank calls a knowledge transfer, 0:25:55.880 --> 0:26:00.160 marketed to businesses to create digital copies of their employees 0:26:00.880 --> 0:26:05.879 quote scale your best employees transfer years of expertise and 0:26:06.000 --> 0:26:09.760 company data that is locked inside your employee's mind through 0:26:09.760 --> 0:26:14.560 a guided personal digital twin unquote. Mind Bank is only 0:26:14.680 --> 0:26:18.520 one of many companies trying to build his technology. At 0:26:18.560 --> 0:26:23.000 Amazon's AI and Emergent Technology conference last year, they veiled 0:26:23.040 --> 0:26:27.439 plans to add custom voices to Alexa Echo devices. With 0:26:27.560 --> 0:26:30.080 an audio sample of less than a minute, AI is 0:26:30.119 --> 0:26:33.200 able to reconstruct the voice of dead relatives to talk 0:26:33.240 --> 0:26:37.480