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95. Grief, Ghosts and Love that Is Persistent with Chris Soucy
1.1k Plays1 month ago
What do love and grief have in common? They are both eternal. Chris Soucy joins us to discuss the connection between grief, love and ghosts. We explore literature, movies, European, Black and Native cultures and paranormal experiences to examine the common threads between these things in society and culture. We discuss hope we can find in being touched by those who are gone.
Chris is the co-host of The Most Haunted City on Earth podcast, which you can find here:
https://www.hauntedcitypodcast.com/
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Transcript
The Essence of a Ghost Story
00:00:00
Speaker
That in itself is the perfect ghost story. All by itself, you've made the perfect ghost story because that is how you end a good ghost story with the message intended from the ghost arriving in the ear of the person who needed to hear it the most. that's When you construct a ghost story, that's what you're hoping. You're hoping to explain why has this spirit appeared? What is the spirit's goal?
00:00:30
Speaker
And you know again, it's easy for a scientist to point out you know ah the chemical interactions of the brain causing these kinds of responses. ah But they can't measure thought, nor can they define memory in any other way than brain activity. And that doesn't that doesn't measure up. It's important to know that there's a reason why people believe we can conjure spirits.
00:00:56
Speaker
There's a reason why people believe that there are rituals that we can do to express and show our devotion to spiritual entities. And that is because it alleviates pressures and pains and worries within us to do these activities or to experience these epiphanies.
Chris Souce's Paranormal Journey
00:01:17
Speaker
That's Chris Souce, the paranormal investigator, ghost hunter, and storyteller based in one of America's spookiest towns, Savannah, Georgia. This is the Silver Linings Handbook podcast. I'm Jason Blair.
00:01:45
Speaker
Many of you are familiar with Chris because he came on earlier this year to talk to us about ghosts and the paranormal. If you haven't listened to that episode, I recommend checking it out. There are many debates about what America's most haunted towns are, but there's no doubt that Savannah, Georgia, where Chris is from, is one of them.
00:02:05
Speaker
When Chris was younger, he had briefly lived in Hinesville, Georgia, a town about 41 miles southeast of Savannah, in the home of the Army's Fort Stewart. Chris had not intended to move back to Savannah, but after leaving the Army, he did in 1993 to live closer to his sister.
00:02:23
Speaker
In the 30-year sense, Chris has done many things, including help build the paranormal industry in Savannah. He knew he wanted to be a storyteller since he was young, and since he was six years old, he said he's been fascinated by ghost stories. And the funny thing about Chris, as you'll find as we talk, is that he's actually quite afraid and filled with anxiety, and that part of what he calls the ghost trap for him was being willing to confront ghosts.
Interview: Grief, Love, and the Paranormal
00:02:53
Speaker
Today, we're going to take a deep dive into the connections between grief, love, ghosts, and the paranormal. I hope you all enjoyed this conversation as much as I did.
00:03:18
Speaker
Hey Chris, I just wanted to thank you for joining me again. um It was really wonderful to have you on in the spring to talk about Ghosts in the Paranormal and um you know I loved hearing the story of your um journey into the paranormal because it wasn't exactly what I expected.
00:03:38
Speaker
you know hearing that it came out of um some of your your own anxiety and confronting that and then all the the wonderful wonderful things that you learned along the way. And I know a lot of my listeners really appreciated the the messages both about ghosts and paranormal, but also about your personal um your personal journey. So thanks for that. Oh yeah, my pleasure. Yeah. Today, we're sort of ah expanding in some ways on the conversation that we had before.
00:04:13
Speaker
And one of the things that Lister said was one of the most powerful parts of that conversation was when you started discussing how one of the most common ghost stories that you hear is about someone's loved one um coming back and that you know to some extent, ghost stories are really about love. And and i and I thought about you know your own story and in terms of sort of like confronting your fears. I'm just curious about what it was like to have that revelation for you where the light bulb went off and said a lot of this is really actually about love.
00:04:53
Speaker
Well, it is. it The fascinating thing is coming to to grips with the connective forces in our lives, what connects us to other people. And do we have fearful connections or do we have loving connections? ah you know What are the strongest bonds that we make? And that when you take that into consideration, how do we behave in life?
00:05:16
Speaker
why wouldn't that transfer into how we behave as spirits? Would our spirits not be governed by the same notions that we carry our whole life, that we would want to be with the people we love, that we want to express our love, that we wouldn't hang out just to, you know, freak people out or to, you know, and jump out of the shadows and go boogity boogity, but in fact, ah utilizing the strongest connections of our existence,
00:05:42
Speaker
to have an impact. And I think that, you know, and that's one of the best lessons is the more you talk to people and hear the ghost stories, there are these casual ghost stories that everyone seems to have, they have these casual ghost stories that aren't, yeah o there oh you know, they're like, that's sweet. That's, that's incredible. And and even people who don't really have like a firm belief in ghosts at all will have like a ah connective notion to someone who who they loved who passed on. like Can I tell you how many times I hear about um like a bird that shows up and people immediately recognize that the bird as a person who ah left them, a grandmother, a family member.
Signs from Loved Ones
00:06:34
Speaker
You know, it's like, you know, after my grandmother died, I saw this red cardinal, you know, on ah on a branch outside the window. Oftentimes red cardinals are are the ah the bird in question. But the fact that they kind of ease into this notion that, oh, yeah, that's my my beloved family member checking in on me.
00:06:56
Speaker
you know giving me a sign that they're so present. And that is a ah predominant feature in people's ghost stories, but they're not the ghost stories that people think about. they They're not the shadowy figure in the dark or the you know moaning in the halls at night. They are um remnants of love being you know shown. And it's like, oh, that's very sweet. It's interesting. So i if you were to ask me Whether I had ever seen a ghost, I don't know, a year or two ago, I would have said to you, no, I've never seen a ghost. um My mom died last October and I can remember this one time sitting on my couch and I had fallen asleep on my couch and it it it had gotten late. And I think I was still asleep or half asleep and I heard this voice talking to me.
00:07:52
Speaker
And it was my mom's voice. And I didn't see anything, but it was like as clear as day in my mom's voice. And what you just said before about like the cardinal reminded me of something at the beginning of the year, January 1 is my mom's birthday. And i I went off to visit her grave, which is at Quantico National Cemetery. and in Virginia and I and visited her grave and I started walking. My brother, my nieces and nephews were there and I started walking back to my car. and and Before I got to my car on my brother brother's car, a butterfly landed.
00:08:35
Speaker
and there it is yeah yeah And then another, that same butterfly landed right above my car door and just sat there and I took a picture of it and I captured it and I i sent a message ah to a friend of mine. I was like, wow, this butterfly.
00:08:53
Speaker
is here you know and I thought it was so cool and I got home and I was still messaging with the same friend and I was like, I wonder whether that was my mom and she said, well, you know that butterflies represent transformation and resume resurrection. Absolutely. you know It probably was your mom saying hi to you and that's so powerful. It really is and it's incredible because and it's funny, gosh, you know I'm a part of this um neighborhood and message board, and ah and somebody had had um recently lost their wife of many years. and He lives far away, but he decided to make the pilgrimage to his wife's hometown.
00:09:37
Speaker
Savannah comes into Savannah. He's driving around. He's just trying to connect and reconnect with this this woman that he loved so much and he He comes to her home the house that she lived in when she was in high school and he's standing in front of the house taking a picture of the house and he encounters the owner of the house and The owner, you know starts a conversation and he's saying oh, you know Someone you know, my wife passed but she used to live in this house and the owners. Oh, did you come by here earlier?
00:10:07
Speaker
because someone else came by saying that they used to live in this house.
00:10:13
Speaker
And the man was like, what? you know and and And in his mind, you know of course, the flash of of of of chill, of coincidence and and that notion. And um and he was he was saying you know that he thought that it could have been a ghost of his wife. um And you know he would hope that she would show herself to him ah instead of a stranger on the street. And I had to chime in and say,
00:10:40
Speaker
you know A lot of people believe that coincidences regarding you know our loved ones who have passed are the loved ones showing up. When the song on the radio plays, just when you need to hear it, that reminds you of them. When something happens that that immediately fills you with the notion of their presence and their influence on your life, that's a spiritual connection.
00:11:04
Speaker
And some people believe that those things can happen because of the residual energy of your love and your dedication and your connection. And so, yeah, it's interesting when when people are so gun shy because to suggest that you saw a ghost or you had an experience that was kind of haunting um puts you in this kind of, you know, out there ah dynamic and and it's and it's it threatens your your prominent place in the reality that everyone participates in.
Cultural Views on Ghosts
00:11:38
Speaker
But if you just take a moment and and and cherish the fact that any time your mind is just full of the presence of someone you love,
00:11:50
Speaker
That's connection. Yeah. You know, it's funny, um you know, you mentioned connection there there and you mentioned connection before and, you know, to some extent, what who we are in our present life and our natural human need, whether you're introverted or extroverted, we're relational beings.
00:12:12
Speaker
and your need for connection. And I was thinking about your podcast, the most haunted city on Earth, which is a podcast you do with Madison Timmons and John Taylor Timmons. And, you know, we were we were talking before we started recording about that idea that, you know, you're making connections, not content, merely as a part of the podcast. And so I imagine if you were to come back as a ghost,
00:12:40
Speaker
you would probably be connecting us. I would hope so. yeah think that that that is but you know As far as like ah ghostly encounters go, I want to be the ghost that people are ah happy to encounter. i mean I would be very tempted to you know show up and be a boogity-boogity ghost, but ah ah hopefully ah the influence that I've had in my life would have been positive enough that the encounters with me after life would would also be positive. Yeah. And I i also wonder sometimes, so you know one of the things that I had been thinking about and preparing for this conversation were some of the different traditions where ghosts appear. And a lot of the the native traditions involve ghosts very similar to what we're talking about, building connection. and Absolutely.
00:13:32
Speaker
And some of them are also though um cautionary tales and some of them are about transformation is really a powerful part of ah native culture and a fascinating part of native culture. And you know my mind kind of jumped to the other side of it, sort of like the ghosts that haunt us and spook us. And you know yeah have you ever heard the the phrase that the job of a friend is not to do what you want, but it's to do right by you. Oh, that's a great phrase. Yeah. And, you know, one of the things that I was just sort of thinking about is sometimes these cautionary tales that we hear about ghosts, even some of the, the really scary ones may actually be helpful. One that comes to mind, you know, is the story in Stephen King's pet cemetery where, right?
00:14:26
Speaker
Yeah where you know ah the short story of course being that you know a man and ah and his wife their son dies in an accident they realize that animals that are buried in the pet cemetery in the back come back alive so the father berries.
00:14:45
Speaker
um his son in the pet cemetery um and of course all sorts of scary and frightening things happen after that and eventually his wife is killed and he buries her in the pet cemetery. He didn't learn his lesson. Right, because he didn't learn his lesson and unlike most Stephen King books which actually in a weird way do have a kind of happy ending or optimistic ending, the last scene in pet cemetery is his wife Walking back in putting her hand on the shoulder and you know that he's done at that point. and And one of the things i thought about is he's the last one standing in that moment he dies there's no one to bury anyone in that.
00:15:32
Speaker
the pet cemetery, which made me think, is this book really about the cost of not letting go?
The Cost of Holding On
00:15:39
Speaker
Oh, absolutely. Not letting go. Anyway, I would love to hear your thoughts. Stephen King himself ah expressed that writing that story was very much about his deep fear of losing his son. He actually lived on a road where the trucks drove by at crazy rates and he had a small son. And it was him facing that that terrifying notion of what would happen. And what would happen is the inconsolable grief, the overpowering grief, and holding on to somebody past their life is a source of pain.
00:16:20
Speaker
And doing everything in your power to not accept that they died will only harm you. And so you know it's the perfect allegory. The longer you hold on to the person you love as alive, not accepting their death, not accepting their passing, not accepting the new condition of your life, the greater the pain will be.
00:16:43
Speaker
And so he he personified it. He created a way to ah to understand that the man couldn't let go of his son in this world, in this realm, in the physical realm, and it was damaging and devastating, cost him his wife. you know there's There's this whole ah simplification of the story, which is we are irrational beasts.
00:17:11
Speaker
And if we were given the option to keep something that had naturally passed out of our reach, it would be an unnatural act and it would cause us harm.
00:17:25
Speaker
Yeah, and it's a I um was invited over the summer to visit actually one of my guests from earlier this year and his daughter went missing years ago and and then eventually was was murdered and she and he are both Ojibwe And so I went up to Minnesota, and among the different things, I went to a powwow, participated in all sorts of neat things, and we also visited her her grave. And one of the things he was telling me about the way that they do their funerals and the fact that they happen relatively quickly, and I was asking a little bit about that, and he said that in our culture, it is so important for us to let go, because if we don't let go,
00:18:16
Speaker
if we don't let go, then the other person, in addition to us not being able to have peace, um and is never able to, in the spirit life, in the afterlife, found peace. And I found that so interesting because he was he was contrasting it to the way that you know most culture cultures deal with Grief, but I've been wondering you know in my own grief whether that is really just sort of, the way you truly find peace in your grief is by letting go of the, to your point that you made before, letting go of the person alive, them being alive, but holding on to beautiful things about them. Oh, absolutely. you know It's interesting because the the the hardship
00:19:09
Speaker
of the notion is the the way we say letting go. Because letting go makes you think that you are releasing from your life or or or somehow losing from your life this person. you're You're dismissing them. You're putting them somewhere out of reach and out of mind. And it's not letting go of the person.
00:19:31
Speaker
It is letting go of the dynamic of the relationship as it was and accepting the new dynamic of the relationship. You're not letting go of your relationship with this person. You just have to accept that there is a new dynamic. And the new dynamic does not include physical contact. It does not include yeah um physical reassurance of presence. It does not include these things, but it does not mean that the person is gone from your life and that's what they think. They think letting go means i'm I'm dismissing the person from my life and it couldn't be further from the truth. When you look at these other cultures like Native American cultures or Asian cultures, they have such a strong construct of the ancestors, the family from the other side of the veil that watches over you and and and
00:20:24
Speaker
Participates in your everyday life that you have to honor them you have to continually keep them in mind as you do your actions you have to be upholding their presence because your presence in this world is their presence in this world. You take on the mantle of their existence while you go on with your life you don't let them go you embrace them.
00:20:47
Speaker
in their new dynamic, in the new dynamic of the relationship where they are not physically next to you, you have to now carry more of them. So it's almost like, instead of letting go, you have to pick up the slack, let's say. Yeah, more is in you, you're carrying a little more weight.
00:21:06
Speaker
right you You have to represent the part of them that you carry better. You have to show that their influence in your life was positive and good. But if you're if you're angry and if you're you're you're so hurt and you can't function or move, it's like, what is that doing to their presence in this world? if If the only thing that their presence served was to just destroy you by their absence,
00:21:34
Speaker
then you know does that really represent them well? Does that show how wondrous and amazing they were in your life if the only thing you have to show for it is this bitter and angry and and sorrowful notion that they're gone? You know, it it reminds me of something my father recently said. He said, he was talking about my mom and he said,
00:22:00
Speaker
It's okay to feel grief because grief is just love. with nowhere to go. And it it was just a very profound statement for me yeah to accept that my grief was okay. But I've been thinking about whether there is something that we call grief. It looks like grief, but maybe it's not really grief. It's very similar. That yeah yeah like absolutely that makes it a hard. And I wonder, i i I don't know the perfect word for it, but I think of,
00:22:32
Speaker
you know, Toni Morrison's book, Beloved, right?
Grief and Guilt in Literature
00:22:36
Speaker
you know yeah And which is really yeah a ghost story. It's a coming of age story. It's a ghost story. It's all sorts of different things. And one theme in literature that I've noticed that gets tied with ghosts is not just grief, but guilt.
00:22:53
Speaker
right? That there's something that we're holding on to that isn't really about love, but it may be about something else. And I was wondering, yeah I think the answer to that is ego. I think when it, because it, when it devolves to how it affects you and that is only what you can think is how it affects you.
00:23:20
Speaker
You are not participating in the world around you. You know have decided that you are the only thing, you know, it's because it goes from this hurts me. I am hurt to the world's not fair. And it's like, which aspect of the world is unfair? Is it the part that hurt you?
00:23:50
Speaker
That isn't fair, and does that not put you in a very powerful position? It puts you in this this this notion that your well-being is the responsibility of the universe.
00:24:03
Speaker
are you Are you familiar with the book Grief Cottage, which is another sort of ghost story? like I'm not sure. I don't think so. Yeah. So it's by Gail ah Goodwin. And the book is about a boy named Marcus. He's, a I think, about 11 years old. And after his mom dies, he's sent to live on this small South Carolina island with his great aunt. And as his aunt is this reclusive painter with very haunted past.
00:24:33
Speaker
And, you know, she's a woman of few words. And at one point very early on, she points ah out this ruined cottage to him telling Marcus um she had visited it regularly after she had moved there like decades ago, but because it sort of matched the ruin of her own life. And then eventually she was inspired to take up painting so she could capture it sort of at utter death desolation. So the cottage is something that she paints.
00:25:05
Speaker
And the people on the island call it the grief column cottage because a boy and his parents ah had disappeared from it during a hurricane like even more decades before and their bodies were never found. Cottage had been empty. And it's hard to say whether this is really a story purely about grief or coming of age or all sorts of things.
00:25:25
Speaker
you know But the boy, unlike his great aunt, is full of curiosity and open to the unfamiliar. um and I won't give up the book, but he meets a very important ghost in his life. and i you know The contrast between his aunt, who is carrying this grief and remorse and sadness and memories that haunt us,
00:25:49
Speaker
And there is also, for the boy, some of that. But it turns into the beauty. And it was just such a powerful contrast in the way that two people could handle grief. One with this openness, the boy, and then his relationship with the ghost. um and you know and And of course, you can't tell in the book. It's very fascinating because you're dealing with one ghost.
00:26:18
Speaker
And with a boy, it certainly seems to be friendly. And with that great aunt, it seems to be sinister. But what I wonder is really the ghost response has much more to do with the person that it's dealing with. them Oh, absolutely. And perception. Yes. well People perceive things as harmful based on their level of trust, based on their level of comfort.
00:26:45
Speaker
And it's easy to to have basically, ah spirits can easily just be echoes of what you put out around you. And if you put out pain, you get pain. If you put out fear, you get something scary. You know, these are the the the contracts we make with ghosts are, I will be afraid if you are scary.
00:27:09
Speaker
You know, I will be grateful if you are kind. You know, these these kinds of of notions, you know, which came first, my attitude or your behavior when it comes to the spiritual realm. um Because, you know, there's a there's a common belief that that spirits ultimately need the attention. And if it can get the attention by being spooky, then that's what it'll take.
00:27:35
Speaker
But if you're willing to to do the work, if you're willing to listen, if you're willing to be present, if you're willing to offer up the energy of attention to the spirit, it may show you other aspects of itself. It may become, you know, because it's not always going to be a loved one or someone close to you ah when you're dealing with classic ghost stories, when you're dealing with, you know, going to a place where someone passed a long time ago and his the spirit is still there. It's like, there's that unfinished ah business aspect to all haunting stories, but there's also just this idea of the human need for connection. Again, we're back to connection and
00:28:15
Speaker
In so many ways, a ghost's most likely connective emotion is going to be fear, and so they are scary. But if you're willing to invest any other emotion, they will probably take advantage of that as well.
00:28:30
Speaker
Um, you know, one of the, one of the things I've always wondered about too, are we were talking earlier about the idea of, uh, Stephen King's pet cemetery. And, you know, there is a tribe, the Macau and Northwest Northwest coast of the, the U S and one of the really interesting things about but them is that ghosts are not seen.
00:28:57
Speaker
But people are certain that they're around and they live along the beaches and they do appear in dreams of the living. And it's it's regarded as some kind of warning that something's going to happen. Do you believe in the idea that ghosts may warn us? Oh, absolutely. Yes, I think that, you know, the. um There's kind of the sensation that a lot of ghosts are just kind of voyeuristic.
00:29:25
Speaker
that they're present and they don't have any real means of communication. So they are kind of destined to just watch us and they long to be a part and participate in our lives. And they're ready and willing and able to intervene if at all possible. And if something is coming,
00:29:45
Speaker
If there is some disturbance in the energies around, they are likely to reach out, especially to ah like you know the ancestor stories, like to your great grandchild who seems to be in trouble, go to them, tell them of the trouble, warn them of the danger, give them an opportunity to survive and prolong your connection to this world.
00:30:07
Speaker
because ideally the dead's connection to the world that they know and love and are eternally attached to, the plane that we exist in, is only propagated by the living. The living must acknowledge them, the living must engage them, the living must be somehow continuing that connection to the earth And so yeah, I can see, ah you know, and I think every culture on the face of the earth have the prophetic spirit, the spirit that warns of danger or the spirit that warns of of some impending doom. Why do you think
00:30:49
Speaker
if if there can be these sort of positive versions of ghosts, helpful versions. Why do you think we're so afraid of them? And I think of it almost like a kid, right? Like the state pop marshmallow man um but and from Ghostbusters, you know, the giant marshmallow man walking down the street. And certainly even in Ghostbusters, there are good friendly, friendly ghosts like Casper. But I mean, Casper is not in Ghostbusters, but they are like Casper.
00:31:17
Speaker
um But you know we associate fear with them so often that they're going to bring some kind of doom or that they're there to harm us. and i just wonder you know I was thinking about what you were saying about the cautionary tales and letting go. I wonder what we're really afraid of when it comes to ghosts. like are we so there's a there's There's this, well, I guess it's my own personal belief. I have i have a personal belief that there's only one fear and it it it is represented in all fears. Every fear that you have is ultimately just a mask over one fear and that fear is the unknown, what we don't know.
Fear of the Unknown
00:32:02
Speaker
And we put a lot of faces on it. We're like, I'm afraid of clowns. It's like, what you're really afraid of is what the clown will do to you. What you're really afraid of is what the clown is capable of, or if you wipe away that makeup, what's underneath? I'm afraid of the dark. What you're really afraid of is what you don't see, what's hiding in the dark, the unknown thing. So ghosts represent that unknown, what happens after I die.
00:32:25
Speaker
They represent the great unknown of our existence that we're trying to desperately wrestle with every day of our existence. They experienced it, but they're not sharing it with us. They represent it, but they're not giving us insight to it.
00:32:41
Speaker
And so they represent the great unknown to us. And that puts them in a position of power that we're so uncomfortable with. The thing that we couldn't stand more than anything is a force that has far more knowledge of the things that we don't understand and we don't know. And now it's present and now I am being held for my ignorance and now I have to deal with something I don't understand and can't comprehend.
00:33:09
Speaker
And that puts us in this this this never ending cycle of fear based on what we don't know. And the truth of the matter is we don't know much. We are so limited. And so we keep clinging to the things that we quote unquote know, but a lot of times these are just notions and ideas. They're not knowledge per se. And so that brings us back to this notion of ah trying to avoid the unknown, trying to fight it with knowledge and, you know, I'm guilty of this all my life. Seeking out the story, the ghost story, seeking out the the light so that it's not dark, finding out what it is. And that's kind of one of those things about my fear is the only thing that alleviates my fear is knowing more about the thing I'm afraid of.
00:34:03
Speaker
Hmm, you know that I think what you're saying makes complete sense that underneath every fear, whether it's of spiders or darkness or exactly anything is really about the unknown and what greater unknown is what happens to us.
00:34:22
Speaker
in the afterlife and that fear of our own immortality, but I think of any kind of anxiety. you know You say the wrong thing and you're worried that someone is upset about it, or you've got a big test to take, you've got all these things. It's it's it's not being able to either predict what's going to happen, the unknown, or it's not knowing what's happening to us in the moment and I wonder whether that embracing the unknown or embracing something like ghosts means piercing that bubble that we live in where as you said we gain more knowledge and we have more understanding and we have more control but maybe there's a gift of freedom that comes from letting go of
00:35:15
Speaker
you know I don't know where my dad is now or my mom is or where my brother will go or where I will go. I don't know um what's coming for me in the afterlife, but I also don't know what's coming for me tomorrow. And maybe accepting that could create freedom for people on some levels.
00:35:35
Speaker
Absolutely. And I think that you know it's reflected in a lot of different um like spiritual movements and spiritual ideology about embracing the unknown as a natural wonder, a miracle, ah or something to not concern yourself with. You know you kind of take ah ah like the Taoist principles of not not not trying to judge things or trying to classify things as good, bad, not trying to put yourself in that, you know, just accept things as they are without explanation. Because explanation doesn't change what it is. So you can accept that something is without knowing everything about it.
00:36:19
Speaker
You can let it be what it is without trying to define it because definition does not change the thing. And we're so obsessed with the idea that once we've defined it, we've changed it. Yeah. Once I understand that then. Right. You know, it's, it's that, uh, the terrible notion that because we understand how, uh, uh, how a woman becomes pregnant, suddenly it's not a miracle. It's science.
00:36:48
Speaker
Mmm, right. Like if we can wrap our heads around the cosmos and the way the universe began, then... Exactly. We're trying to rob the world of miracles because we think being able to define it or explain it somehow lessens the impact of the miracle. It's like, no, a life is inscrutable. It is amazing. There's nothing you can say that will not make producing a human being not just the penultimate miracle of miracles. And yet, we we've turned it into commonplace. o We've turned it into an industry. We've turned it into something so normal and and regular that you know we can advertise to it. we we Yeah, we forget that. It's a miracle just because we understand something. Because we understand it. And it's like, well, that is a perfect example because it's like,
00:37:44
Speaker
the same way we can dispel fear, we can dispel wonder. And maybe sometimes when we do one, we we do the other. there Yeah. You know, it makes me think about like how we as humans will do anything to avoid pain. And sometimes I think the unknown is so unbelievably painful, you know, feeling out of control. And it reminds me of this quote by the poet Khalil Gibran in this poem he wrote called On Pain. And he says in it,
00:38:17
Speaker
that pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses our understanding. And later he says that pain is the bitter potion by which the physician within you heals your sick self. And I'm just wondering whether like the ghosts in paranormal and things like that can actually be a part of the healing instead of a part of our fear. And maybe that is exactly what happened to you.
00:38:46
Speaker
like I believe, yeah, I believe that fully. I think that is a beautiful way of, of, of approaching the notion of healing and the notion of, of even just, just living, you know, um, and you'll leave it to go a little LeBron to sum it up perfectly yes brown is is this notion that pain is, it is a marker of growth.
00:39:14
Speaker
and But we're also so afraid of it that it means we're afraid of growing. you know on On top of you know everything else, ah we we're willing to accept these these smaller pains because we don't want to face the larger pain of growing.
00:39:32
Speaker
you know One of the most surprising things for me in preparing for this, as I was flipping through, like what are the ghost stories that I know? was How many romance stories involved ghosts? right and you know Ghost itself, the movie with Patrick Swayze, man gets attacked on the street,
00:39:52
Speaker
you know, and returns to his wife as a ghost. I think Demi Moore played the the wife in that. But it seems to be a theme in these romance stories. Oh, yes, absolutely. Because love is supposed to be eternal. And so when you when you when you talk about the temporary vessel of the human body and the eternal notion of love, the difference is a ghost story, you know, the the time between.
00:40:21
Speaker
You know, that's fascinating. You said that love is eternal and maybe in part where a ghost makes it easier is, and I definitely feel this with the people that I've lost, whether it's to death or even lost to other things, you know, just no longer in my life, that it is baffling how the love continues.
Eternal Nature of Love
00:40:45
Speaker
The person can be gone and the love continues and maybe You know, maybe there's a connection between that because it's so unbelievably baffling to me about how love persists like that. Love is persistent deeply and egregiously so ah because even people that you should not love, you find yourself reckoning with the idea that you do still love people who may have hurt you or wronged you or people you may have wronged and hurt. You know, we, we,
00:41:18
Speaker
we have this ability to pour our attentions and affections into this, this concept of love. And then it's indelible in so many ways. Um, and I'm not saying that people don't fall out of love. I'm not saying that there aren't cases, you know, plenty of cases where people just no longer love the people that they did at one point, but by and large,
00:41:44
Speaker
we We love persists. It is a persistent emotion. It it goes and goes and goes. um And it's funny because your father had had said a quote similar to this, and it was in WandaVision of all places, a Marvel TV show on Disney Plus. ah Vision says, what is grief except love persisting?
00:42:06
Speaker
That is so true. It's like, what what why is this line in this show? It's a little a little too heavy for a Tuesday night superhero TV show. um Just needed to slide it in there. It's like, how dare you? I did not come here for this, sir. um So yeah yeah, it's fascinating when ah when you when you when you really look past your life and see the people who have come and gone and where you've invested your love, how oftentimes that investment has continued to pay out.
00:42:40
Speaker
and Ask you a thought experiment question. Sure. you know I don't know if you've ever seen a ghost or met a ghost, so I guess that's really the first part of it. But if if you if you were to encounter one and you you had the opportunity to ask a question, what do you but do you think you would ask?
00:43:00
Speaker
So weirdly enough, I have had a lot of ghostly encounters. I have seen, felt, heard, had interactions that I could not dismiss as you know um merely my imagination or the context of the environment. ah And unfortunately, in all of those occasions, I did not have the presence of mind to be you know inquisitive. ah home But i do I do go on like paranormal investigations a lot.
00:43:29
Speaker
We we indulge ourselves in this notion where we go and we sit and we and we talk to the air and we ask these questions that are Strangely innocuous and kind of you know open-ended, you know um if there's someone present You know speak to us. What would you like to pass along? Is there anything you want to tell us and I find that those questions kind of derive themselves from the fact that we don't know what we would ask a spirit if it was right in front of us. you know If a spirit was right in front of us, the question that seems to come up is, what do you want?
00:44:06
Speaker
You tell me what you want, and I will understand you better. And I will maybe do something that you might want me to do. um Because in the end, i when I really rack my brains about, wow, if I ever got into a conversation with a ghost, would I say, what's it like on the other side? Or you know what happens after you die? It turns out I wouldn't. Those aren't the questions that come to mind. My endless fascination with a ghost begins and ends with their presence in the moment. e And I find myself ah in in this world where I'm like, you know that's really cool because perhaps I should always address the living the same way.
00:44:52
Speaker
Well, that's interesting because one of the things that baffled me when I heard my mom was why I didn't ask a question or it doesn't occur to you in the moment. yeah And a lot of people do that. they'll They'll be like, Oh, well, did you take a picture? It's like, no, I didn't take a picture. I was too busy.
00:45:09
Speaker
being overwhelmed. It's too busy processing things to you know ah to facilitate the capture of evidence or the you know the gaining of the the of the knowledge. I spent my my time because I think one of the first things you do is question whether it's real. You question whether it it happened. And that ah that makes the time evaporate. All of a sudden, you're no longer in the moment. You are spending your time trying to prove or disprove a condition of the present. So yeah, it's it's it's funny because I would love to say that I have, you know, a list of questions that I would ask the recently deceased and I would find out the truth of the new universe. No, I generally would be a gibbering idiot and I would just find myself kind of reeling in the moment. Yeah. You know, I i think of, um, and it makes me, but another aspect of this makes me think of something else and
00:46:10
Speaker
You know, in the in the book,
00:46:14
Speaker
Maya Angelou's book, Caged Bird, oh yeah you know yeah david bird thing yeah, why the Caged Bird sings. And it's so unbelievably powerful. And I've always thought of that book as really being about the struggle for freedom. And and where this comes back, and it probably comes back even down to childhood when you heard phrases like, if you love someone, you you'll let them go, right? right and And let them go. Yeah, and I i wonder whether that some of, because so many of the themes about ghosts that we see in literature are about us letting the ghost go and the ghost almost being trapped. Oh, absolutely. that is That's a perfect analogy for the moment is,
00:47:05
Speaker
You hold them in place when you don't let them go. When you don't let them be in their current state, you're trapping them in a past state. You're trapping them in the state that they were when they were alive with you. And that is no longer where they are. And so... Sort of holding on to something that's not there anymore. Right. you're almost You're almost freezing them in a picture. And now you're holding the picture. And it's like, but they need to move on. They have to do more. You have to give them the freedom to do more, to be more, because you're limiting their existence to just your perception of them and not the wholeness of what they are.
00:47:44
Speaker
So for the people who've made it this far into the conversation, who who are, who are afraid of ghosts. I'm not worried. I think most people will make it this far in the conversation, but you know, I want to tip my hat to those who are afraid of ghosts who have made it. Um, what, you know, for those who have anxiety and those fears, what would your message to them be? So first off,
00:48:12
Speaker
I always want to tell people to honor their fear. People try to make you ashamed of being afraid, but fear is healthy. It is a perfectly reasonable response. ah You do not have to feel ashamed of being afraid. Being afraid is a defense mechanism. It is a means to heighten your awareness of your surroundings and any dangers that might be there.
00:48:41
Speaker
When you're talking about the fear of ghosts, there comes a conversation that must happen. And that is, what do you believe? Because fear is a substitute for belief. they're very closely If anything,
00:49:04
Speaker
they are they are one and the same. Fear and belief thrive on the same kind of notion. They don't require proof. They don't require evidence. What they are is a notion that you accept. So now you're dealing with a belief that you have and that belief must mean you think it's going to harm you or that there's danger.
00:49:37
Speaker
and you start to navigate the concept of fear. What is your fear? What are you really afraid of in this instance? What are you afraid of when facing the supernatural, the paranormal? What is it about that unknown element? Can you break it down further? Because that's the examination that I think is healthy.
00:49:57
Speaker
That's interesting you say that, because as you were talking, I was thinking to myself, a belief, a dream, a fantasy, and fear are really not all that different. No. like say they they They all require some measure, and it's going to be odd to say it like this, I think, some measure of faith. Yes, they're all tenets of faith.
00:50:21
Speaker
That's kind of a powerful way to think about it. So for those people um you know who are... you know and it it I guess it comes back to that idea of... like you know love and grief are so unbelievably connected. And in some ways, it's probably not that surprising that both love and grief, so um but because you can can't grieve something you didn't love, right? And you can't And the investment of love is is is what's going to essentially lead to that grief. I wonder if there's a reason why ghosts are both connected so often to those two things. They're so powerful and important. You made the point that love is eternal and and and maybe grief is too. um Absolutely. you know the The deeper the love, the deeper the grief without question. The more you love something, the more it hurts when it's gone.
00:51:23
Speaker
And to that point, the harder we hold on and that journey essential to the human experience is learning that it is not about our possession of something that makes it dear.
00:51:48
Speaker
It is not about being able to hug and hold the person you love. It is not about them loving us back. It's not about all of those notions that we've we've really become accustomed to um ascribing love as an action. Love is a condition. And the moment we can accept that the condition of love has no bearing on ah the proximity or the availability.
00:52:31
Speaker
Or the corporal nature. even Exactly. You know, ah we can, we can start to, again, redefine our relationship with that, with whatever it is we love and lost because we want to continue the relationship.
00:52:49
Speaker
And you don't want the relationship to be contingent on the pain that you feel. You want it to be contingent on all of the good feelings. And yeah, that does mean that you're going to recognize the pain of not being able to have uh, more or new good feelings with this person. But it does, we have to kind of accept that love doesn't die when the person dies. It persists. It's instill in us. We still have the opportunity to express it, to, uh, nurture it, to participate with it. But if we're trying to participate with it in the same way we participated when they were alive, that's just pain. That's just going to be pain.
00:53:42
Speaker
ah In that story I was telling you before about hearing my mother's voice, what happened before that is very interesting. So while I was sleeping, I had this very strange dream and she was in it and my brother was in it. And we were in this very weird neighborhood that after I think about it was really a compilation of all the neighborhoods we had ever lived in and some more.
00:54:05
Speaker
And you know that idea that clearly this was being triggered, I was remembering things in this stream that I had completely forgotten places. And I wonder whether part of what is so powerful about ghosts is that if you're willing to let go, and I know scientifically Any smart scientists will tell me that I was just tapping into parts of my memory that had passed through my hippocampus and landed in my hypothalamus and that it was just indelible indelible memory that I was not ah touching on a short-term basis, but I wonder whether I did experience something new in that moment.
00:54:48
Speaker
In that moment when I heard her voice, she told me something very interesting. It was about how I was going to be okay. It's very similar to like one of the last things she actually said to me, which she had said,
00:55:03
Speaker
She had said, apropos of nothing. I love you and I'm proud of you. And you've done very well. It was apropos of nothing. I said nothing. I came out of nowhere and that you're going to be okay. Happy to be just like that. Exactly what I needed to hear in that moment. Yeah, absolutely and that's that in itself is the perfect ghost story all by itself.
00:55:30
Speaker
You've made the perfect ghost story because that is how you end a good ghost story with the message intended from the ghost arriving in the ear of the person who needed to hear it the most. that's When you construct a ghost story, that's what you're hoping. You're hoping to explain why has this spirit appeared? What is the spirit's goal?
00:55:53
Speaker
And you know again, it's easy for a scientist to point out you know ah the chemical interactions of the brain causing these kinds of responses. ah But they can't measure thought, nor can they define memory in any other way than brain activity. And that doesn't matt that doesn't measure up. but um It's important to know that there's a reason why people believe we can conjure spirits.
00:56:20
Speaker
There's a reason why people believe that there are rituals that we can do to express and show our devotion to spiritual entities. And that is because it alleviates pressures and pains and worries within us to do these activities or to experience these epiphanies. And so there you have this notion, because I'm pretty sure in the last ah podcast that I came to visit, the story is,
00:56:50
Speaker
I cannot tell you how many times I've heard the story on the night my blank died. They came to me in the dream on the night my mother died, my grandmother, my cousin, my, uh, you know, uh, uncle, when they died, they came to me in a dream. And the message so often, not always, but most of the time, the message is you're going to be all right. I'm going to be all right. It is passing the soothing balm.
00:57:21
Speaker
of comfort from beyond the grave. That is hands down the most popular ghost story I've heard in my life. And I've been listening to ghost stories since I was six years old. And that is the most popular one, the one that I hear the most from more people, people who don't believe in ghosts, people who ah chase ghosts for you know a profession, people who you know all along that spectrum so often they will tell me about the night that a loved one visited them in their dreams. And of course dreams, let's let's face it, dreams are miracles that occur every night. know it is It is our mind relaying message after message from whatever source, from whatever way, from whatever purpose, and our minds
00:58:11
Speaker
turning them into narratives that oftentimes give us elation and joy or fear or whatever. So yeah, you know, ah a person in your life visiting you in a dream, living or dead visiting you in a dream is connective and connection. So yeah, that's, ah you know, it's ah it's a perfect ghost story you have. and Bringing it back to connection. So I think that's a perfect way to end. I appreciate you coming back on. And, um you know, I, if,
00:58:41
Speaker
I cannot tell you how enjoyable it's been to listen to your podcast since we first met. So I just want to encourage all my listeners before we go to check it out. So thanks, Chris. Oh, thank you so much. A real pleasure.
00:59:00
Speaker
If you would like to join us for more discussions with me and other listeners, we can be found on most social media platforms, including a list or run Facebook group called the Silver Linings Fireside Chat. For deeper conversations with our guests and live conversations with other listeners, you can also join us on our Patreon at www.patreon dot.com forward slash the Silver Linings Handbook.
00:59:26
Speaker
I'm Jason Blair. This is the Silver Linings Handbook podcast. We'll see you all again next week. Have you ever wanted to travel to the past and follow the trails of crooks, killers and outlaws from yesteryear, all from the safety of a time machine?
00:59:44
Speaker
While on the Vintage Villains podcast, I examined the people, the cases, and the zeitgeist of the year in question, so we can learn what made folks tick back then and better understand that which plagues us in the overwhelming present. Subscribe to Vintage Villains now on your favorite music or podcatcher apps, and I'll be seeing you soon in another century.