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Speaker 1: Now here's a highlight from Coast to Coast AM on

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Speaker 1: iHeart Radio, and thanks for joining us US. Welcome back

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Speaker 1: to Coast to Coast George Nori with you. Varla Ventur

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Speaker 1: the author of six books on bizarre and strange things

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Speaker 1: from the history of paranormal parlor games, the vampires, benchees,

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Speaker 1: and other creepy creatures of the realms of faery. She

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Speaker 1: has experienced countless paranormal events and considers herself a committed supernaturalist.

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Speaker 1: She can be found lurking around in Minnesota's deep dark

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Speaker 1: woods in the hunt for beastly things, hidden history and

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Speaker 1: graveyards and valla were Welcome back. Why, thank you, it's

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Speaker 1: great to be back. Have you been everything good? Yeah,

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Speaker 1: things have been good. Yeah, I'm doing okay. How's the

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Speaker 1: paranormal world these days? Well, it's um, you know, I

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Speaker 1: haven't done as much traveling as I have in the past,

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Speaker 1: but interestingly it's picked up at home a little. So

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Speaker 1: that's kind of fun or maybe it's scary. I guess

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Speaker 1: it depends on your perspective. Absolutely, what are some maybe

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Speaker 1: your favorite paranormal topics? I would say that of well,

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Speaker 1: I absolutely love and this is you know, this is

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Speaker 1: why I love Coast to Coast and in particular this

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Speaker 1: like late Hour, because I love hearing other people's stories.

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Speaker 1: I like collecting, I like sharing ghost stories, and I

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Speaker 1: think there's something like really lovely in that shared experience,

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Speaker 1: you know, And it happens constantly to people in the

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Speaker 1: middle of the night listening to this show. It happens

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Speaker 1: when I talk with people, and I interview people from

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Speaker 1: my books and and just I don't know, I seem

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Speaker 1: to draw ghost stories out of people, so that just

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Speaker 1: like generals just fun, ghost stories are not fun. They

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Speaker 1: can be really scary. To me, that's fun. And then

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Speaker 1: the other topics that I find really interesting and I've

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Speaker 1: just gotten more and more interested in lately, is um

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Speaker 1: just the whole kind of some of the things that

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Speaker 1: were happening in history during the rise of the spiritualist

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Speaker 1: movement and some of the channeling and a lot of

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Speaker 1: the women who were sort of rising above their ordinary

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Speaker 1: ranks thanks to the paranormal parlor games. So those are

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Speaker 1: some pretty But you know what, if it's paranormal, like

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Speaker 1: I'm in time, I'm in, shouldn't we be afraid of

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Speaker 1: the paranormal? I mean, I personally have had a few

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Speaker 1: things that have startled me. And I can only speak

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Speaker 1: for myself because I know that I know people who

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Speaker 1: have been very tormented by things, and I've discussed this

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Speaker 1: with people, um, you know, very close to me that

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Speaker 1: have had really a lot of trauma with the paranormal,

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Speaker 1: whether it's a poltergeist in the house or seeing something

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Speaker 1: they didn't understand. But I am not of the camp

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Speaker 1: of being afraid of the paranormal. In fact, I think

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Speaker 1: that's why we are drawn to it, because we're looking

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Speaker 1: for some kind of answers or lessons, or maybe it's

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Speaker 1: just entertainment value, but whatever it is, you know, it's

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Speaker 1: actually probably a little of everything, right, It's a little

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Speaker 1: of all of that. And I don't I mean, I'm

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Speaker 1: not going to tell people not to be afraid, but

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Speaker 1: I find that, and this is the beauty of the

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Speaker 1: ghost story. I find that I am often more afraid

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Speaker 1: after the fact, or hearing something after the fact than

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Speaker 1: for me most of my experiences, I'm usually trying to

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Speaker 1: explain it away in the moment and kind of trying

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Speaker 1: to like rationalize what's going on. I don't automatically think, oh,

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Speaker 1: that's a ghost so I think my brain kind of

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Speaker 1: kicks in and tries to rationalize it. I think that's

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Speaker 1: that's probably happens to a lot of people. And I

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Speaker 1: think it's kind of like after the fact when you

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Speaker 1: can't explain it, and sometimes that could be a couple

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Speaker 1: days later and you start putting things together, and then

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Speaker 1: in the retelling, I think things get scarier. We always

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Speaker 1: have that the fisherman thing right where because the fish

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Speaker 1: gets bigger and bigger, the monster gets bigger and scarier.

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Speaker 1: But sometimes that's that's completely authentic because it is scarier

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Speaker 1: when we're reliving it because in the moment, you're kind

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Speaker 1: of like, I guess survival mode or or just logical mode,

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Speaker 1: which are maybe one and the same. DoD children come

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Speaker 1: up with all these incredible stories that parents will generally say, ah,

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Speaker 1: you're a imagining this. I mean. So that actually kind

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Speaker 1: of speaks directly to why some of us are inherently

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Speaker 1: afraid of the paranormal. And again, I'm not telling people

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Speaker 1: not to be afraid, because you know, I's fears a

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Speaker 1: real thing, But I do think that it can start

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Speaker 1: at a very young age when we many of us

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Speaker 1: who have had experiences have probably had them at some

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Speaker 1: point when they were younger, whether that's um, you know,

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Speaker 1: sort of psychic flashes or actually seeing spirits, and often

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Speaker 1: the grown ups around us, in a misguided attempt to

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Speaker 1: protect us, will sort of say, oh, well, you're just

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Speaker 1: imagining it, that there's nothing there, and you know, they're

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Speaker 1: trying to comfort you, right, they're trying to say, hey,

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Speaker 1: you know, you're going to be okay. But really what

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Speaker 1: it does is it immediately invalidates whatever you've seen as

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Speaker 1: a kid. So if you've legitimately seen some sort of

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Speaker 1: specter in your room and now your parent is telling

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Speaker 1: you that it's not real, well, after a while, you'll

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Speaker 1: just stop telling them, But that doesn't mean you're going

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Speaker 1: to stop seeing it. And you don't, you know, I mean,

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Speaker 1: you don't. Maybe years go by in between when you

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Speaker 1: have experiences, but by and large, I think that some

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Speaker 1: of that fear comes from assuming that you're imagining it,

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Speaker 1: and it kind of makes people doubt their own their

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Speaker 1: own sanity or well being, when in fact they're having

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Speaker 1: a very common and very commonly shared experience. Have you

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Speaker 1: had your own ghostly encounters? Varla absolutely have. Yeah, from

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Speaker 1: a young age, I have, and I've had them throughout

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Speaker 1: my life. I've had a little bit of everything. I

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Speaker 1: guess I've kind of had a grab bag of paranormal experiences.

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Speaker 1: You know, I've had things touch me, you know, the

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Speaker 1: tap on the shoulder, the little little tug on the

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Speaker 1: on the hair, um, sitting on the bed. That's actually

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Speaker 1: happened to me a few times, where something feels like

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Speaker 1: it's sitting on the end of the bed. And that's

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Speaker 1: a little disconcerting because you know, you've you hear You're like, layline,

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Speaker 1: I asleep, what's going on? Um, I've been tapped on

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Speaker 1: the forehead, I've seen things. I've seen things kind of shimmering.

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Speaker 1: I've things, I've seen things, you know, shoot by shadowy people.

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Speaker 1: Definitely have some shadow people encounters UM. And probably more

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Speaker 1: than more than anything, at least lately, I've had some

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Speaker 1: Claire audience things. So that's you know, you've got Claire buoyant,

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Speaker 1: which is sort of a little bit of everything, but

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Speaker 1: Claire audience specifically is being able to hear things. A

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Speaker 1: lot of people will just say, oh, I'm a claibuoyant,

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Speaker 1: but what you're what you really are, is you're a

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Speaker 1: Claire Audience. You're hearing spirits or you're hearing something like

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Speaker 1: you might hear, you know, someone say George down the

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Speaker 1: hall and it's clear as a bell, but no one's there.

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Speaker 1: Nobody's there at all. You think somebody's in the room

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Speaker 1: and they're not there, absolutely, And I think that's that's

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Speaker 1: probably more common, and I think that for myself, I

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Speaker 1: think that probably happened more. But I lived in like

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Speaker 1: a more urban area, and like it was like, Okay,

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Speaker 1: you know, maybe it's just my neighbors or but but

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Speaker 1: you know, I have a pretty unusual name. So if

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Speaker 1: I hear that name, I'm like, wait a second, like

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Speaker 1: how you know, how how am I hearing that name?

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Speaker 1: So um, yeah, I think I think there's so I've

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Speaker 1: had all those things. I've had a lot of Claire audience.

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Speaker 1: I've even had a few things happened lately. And then

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Speaker 1: I'm not sure exactly what you would classify it as,

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Speaker 1: but I think a lot of people just sort of

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Speaker 1: have like a feeling, um, you might walk into a room.

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Speaker 1: I know one time I was down in Key West

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Speaker 1: with my mom and we were hitting all the cool

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Speaker 1: spooky museums and I don't know if you've ever been

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Speaker 1: to Key West. Oh, it's it's just like a little um,

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Speaker 1: I mean, it's just like a weirdo's paradise quite frankly.

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Speaker 1: I mean it's lovely there, and isn't it it is.

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Speaker 1: Then there's just like gorgeous beaches and you kind of

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Speaker 1: have it all. And then there's also just like all

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Speaker 1: like right in the heart of Key West. You've got

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Speaker 1: paranormal you know, stories and tours, and you've got Robert

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Speaker 1: the doll that lived there, you know, that super creepy

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Speaker 1: haunted doll. And um, then you have just um like

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Speaker 1: these the Pirate Museum, the Shipwreck Museum. The Shipwreck Museum

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Speaker 1: is actually where I had an experience, um where I

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Speaker 1: walked in there and we were on a little kind

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Speaker 1: of my mom and I had gone in there. We

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Speaker 1: were actually on a tour, and UM, I just all

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Speaker 1: of a sudden felt like the pressure like something was

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Speaker 1: just honestly, in retrospect, it felt like the way it

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Speaker 1: feels when you dive really deep into a pool and

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Speaker 1: you have that pressure, or if you've ever gone scuba

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Speaker 1: diving or snorkeling, where you go under the water and

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Speaker 1: you kind of have that pressure. So it wasn't negative.

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Speaker 1: It was real. It was very, very intense, and it

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Speaker 1: was in the specific spot and it got so strong

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Speaker 1: I actually had to hold onto something to keep from

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Speaker 1: kind of like falling over. And I didn't see any things.

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Speaker 1: I didn't want to interrupt the tours. This woman was

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Speaker 1: telling us all this great historical stuff, and I was

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Speaker 1: just kind of rolling with it, and I'm thinking, like, WHOA,

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Speaker 1: what's going on? And as soon as I stepped away

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Speaker 1: from that spot, I kind of got to like it,

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Speaker 1: kind of it lifted, and then she went on to

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Speaker 1: tell us. Then she launched into like all of the

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Speaker 1: strange paranormal things that had happened there. Well, the shipwreck

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Speaker 1: Museum is exactly what it sounds like. That's all of

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Speaker 1: these things that have been scavenged from shipwrecks. But some

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Speaker 1: of those shipwrecks were there were some people would just

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Speaker 1: scavenge it, right, which is kind of like a thing.

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Speaker 1: It was like, it's a shipwreck, you go down, you

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Speaker 1: get the things you can, you sell what you can,

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Speaker 1: you know, tough times. But there were people who are

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Speaker 1: a little less scrupulous, and they would go and put

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Speaker 1: a light in an area to misguide a ship to

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Speaker 1: go over the rocks, and so there's definitely like things

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Speaker 1: attached to the many things, and this is a museum

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Speaker 1: laden with things. So I had actually a couple of

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Speaker 1: things happened when I was in Key West, and so

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Speaker 1: I guess my point to that is, I think it's

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Speaker 1: also common for people to have like a feeling like

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Speaker 1: an extreme coldness, maybe extreme lightheadedness that they can't explain,

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Speaker 1: or sometimes warmth. You know, I've had that happened a

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Speaker 1: few times. There's a cemetery right by my house that

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Speaker 1: because I'm me, I walked through the cemetery every day

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Speaker 1: on my daily walk, and not every time I walk through,

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Speaker 1: but frequently when I walk through, I hit kind of

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Speaker 1: about halfway and just this overwhelming feeling of happiness and

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Speaker 1: enjoy hits me. And now I'm happy in a cemetery,

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Speaker 1: I'll admit that. But this is a little different. This

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Speaker 1: is like tingles up and down my spine, but very

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Speaker 1: very joyful. Um. And then one time I was walking

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Speaker 1: through and I got that. And then I walked a

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Speaker 1: little further on and I got like a you know,

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Speaker 1: big hit of something negative. I don't know what it was,

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Speaker 1: but I hurried on my way that's for sure. Do

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Speaker 1: you have a pet, Varla, I have. I have cats, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: are they sensitive to the other side? So I think

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Speaker 1: I have a dog that barks randomly at things, definitely,

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Speaker 1: But I have I have a black cat that I've

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Speaker 1: had for years. It's kind of my my long terms,

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Speaker 1: my my my long companion. And um, there have been

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Speaker 1: a few times when I think I felt something and

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Speaker 1: all kind of like look up and look around and

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Speaker 1: he's almost inevitably in the room with me at that time.

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Speaker 1: So he seems to be the one the other the

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Speaker 1: other two are kind of oblivious, quite frankly amazing. You

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Speaker 1: have talked about the paranormal parlor games. What are they?

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Speaker 1: So I prefer so as kind of something like I

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Speaker 1: think of as that period of time in which the

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Speaker 1: spiritualist just to give you like a quick overview. So

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Speaker 1: like the spiritualist movement, which still exists, people are still

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Speaker 1: practicing spiritualists, but it really became like a movement and

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Speaker 1: at it sort of sort of peak in the US,

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Speaker 1: and it was also you know, present in Europe and

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Speaker 1: throughout England and Ireland, in Canada, but primarily in the US.

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Speaker 1: It peaked after the Civil War and the spiritualism being

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Speaker 1: the belief not just that you can communicate with the dead,

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Speaker 1: but that the dead actually have messages for us. So

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Speaker 1: many of our paranormal practices today are based on this,

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Speaker 1: the rise of spiritualism and the belief that because of

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Speaker 1: course we've been trying to communicate with the dead and

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Speaker 1: the divine for you know, since we realized that we

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Speaker 1: were mortal, but spiritualism as a sort of like practice

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Speaker 1: and also just not just the idea that we're communicating,

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Speaker 1: but we're getting messages, and those are messages that can

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Speaker 1: help us, They can help society as a whole. They

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Speaker 1: can kind of guide people and also deliver messages of comfort.

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Speaker 1: So this spiritualist movement then not surprisingly gave you know,

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Speaker 1: it was kind of started to spike after the Civil

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Speaker 1: War in eighteen sixty five or so, and then through

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Speaker 1: through the eighteen forty to like nineteen thirty is really

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Speaker 1: when it was like very popular. During this time, it

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Speaker 1: became very popular to conduct sciences, and it was frequently

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Speaker 1: people of you know, upper echelons of society who had

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Speaker 1: fair parlors and lovely dining tables who would host these

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Speaker 1: mediums who would come through town and they would travel,

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Speaker 1: you know, they would there's there's a circuit, you know,

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Speaker 1: they traveled the circuit, and UM people would attend these sciances,

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Speaker 1: and it was people who were believers, people who were disbelievers,

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Speaker 1: people who were devout Catholics, people you know, would go

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Speaker 1: to these these um sort of I guess, like a

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Speaker 1: paranormal lawn on a Saturday afternoon or evening, and then

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Speaker 1: they'd get up and go to church. So it wasn't

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Speaker 1: wasn't viewed as like an evil thing or in conflict

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Speaker 1: in any way with them. I'm sure some people um

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Speaker 1: in the church believe did it. It was you know,

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Speaker 1: goods with the devil and such, but bio large, it

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Speaker 1: became this very very big movement. It was very popular,

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Speaker 1: and out of that came the Wigia board and the

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Speaker 1: regular use of the Wigia board and other kind of

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Speaker 1: means spirit boards they weren't always all called that, but

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Speaker 1: spirit boards various forms of crying and channeling, basically automatic writing,

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Speaker 1: usually through the guidance, and in spiritualism there usually needs

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Speaker 1: to be a medium present to conduct these these things.

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Speaker 1: And then of course eventually people began just sort of

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Speaker 1: experimenting with these things at home and you know, Parker

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Speaker 1: Brothers started cranking out the Wigia board, and you know

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Speaker 1: it still continues today. So those paranormal parlor games or

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Speaker 1: all of those kind of things that you think of

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Speaker 1: like that Victorian parlor and people sitting around, you know,

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Speaker 1: putting their hands on the table and lighting candles and

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Speaker 1: actually really collectively trying to make content act with the

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Speaker 1: spirit world, and many of them believing that that was

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Speaker 1: an absolute possibility. And a lot of very interesting stories

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Speaker 1: came out of that time. So those are the kind

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Speaker 1: of paranormal parlor games. My mother's very spiritual varlor still

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Speaker 1: with us ninety three, but I remember her taking me

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Speaker 1: to what they were called crying Virgin Mary statue events,

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Speaker 1: and somebody would bring the statue into a house that

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Speaker 1: would be full of people, primarily women, but full of

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Speaker 1: people who would be in the parlor, family room, living room,

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Speaker 1: whatever you want to call it, and they would have

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Speaker 1: the statue there and they would pray and wait for

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Speaker 1: it and hope for it to cry. Well, I was

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Speaker 1: never there what had cried, but these were these were

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Speaker 1: events that they called miracles all over the country, and

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Speaker 1: they would bring these statues of crying Virgin Mary's there,

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Speaker 1: which were I guess, you know, you'd call it more

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Speaker 1: religious than paranormal, but it still was weird, especially when

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Speaker 1: you're a ten year old little boy, right. But I mean,

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Speaker 1: there is an intersection there with this kind of belief

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Speaker 1: that a statue can cry and that you know, you

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Speaker 1: can make contacts with the dead, the divine, the dead, right,

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Speaker 1: that's what you're trying to make. And a seance is

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Speaker 1: a different kind of ritual than a prayer. So I

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Speaker 1: think there's a lot of commonality in that, enoughs why

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Speaker 1: it was able the spiritualist moment became so popular. Listen

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Speaker 1: to more Coast to Coast AM every weeknight at one

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