S1 Ep13: Swami Mystery Talking Board

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The views and opinions expressed by hosts and listeners on the Astonishing Dead Letter office are their own and do not necessarily reflect those of Astonishing Legends Productions, the Astonishing Legends Network, or any affiliated entities or guests. When something unexplainable happens to you, it can make you feel isolated or alone. But trust us, you're not. For over a decade, you've been sending your strange stories to Astonishing Legends, and now it's time for our fellow legenders to hear them too. Join us weekly in the vault beneath Blanket Fortiana, which we call... The Astonishing Dead Letter Office. Tonight's episode, Swami Mystery Talking Board. Well, this one practically jumped out of the dead letter office mailbag. Okay, that's speaking metaphorically right. Or wait a second, are you printing these letters out from emails and then putting them in a big canvas bag with the word mail stamped on the side of it? Are you actually physically creating it? Yeah, of course I am. It's for props. It adds to the vibe, the feel of it. I miss real letters. Okay, I'll go along with that. Who wants to listen to the dead email office? Also, it's very dramatic when you pour these letters out from the bag onto a big desk to show how many you've got. That's right. All on Jimmy Stewart. Well, this one here, seriously, is an extremely creepy story. And it's the type we come across from time to time that coincide with a physical injury. Yeah, and people like to write paranormal stories connected to things like this off because they say it's so easy to say, well, it's just damage to the mind and body that's causing these things. But that begs the question, why does that damage seem to manifest this way so much? What would be the scientific or evolutionary reason for that? All right, sir, it is your turn to read. I was stationed at Mountain Home Air Force Base in Mountain Home, Idaho. I lived in Idaho before my service and lived there during for about a total of seven years. I loved it and still do, although I now live in Frederick, Maryland. Anyway, while I lived out there, my friends and I would go thrifting and walking around antique malls. We were at an antique mall sometime in 2016, I believe. And I stumbled across an old Swami mystery talking board. It caught my eye right away and I immediately picked it up and I knew I needed it. I had to have it. I actually haven't done any research on the history of these Swami talking boards, but it looked fairly used and kind of weathered. Anyway, I took it home with me and displayed it without a thought. I ended up moving to Washington, D.C. in 2017 after getting a job offer. I moved across the country and took the board with me. I unpacked and had placed it on my bookshelf in the living room of my one-bedroom apartment. It did not come with any sort of planchette or other communication device, just the board. So, I was settled into my apartment, going to work, living my normal life. I met a guy in the area and we began dating. He was from a very religious Christian household. I was working and living in McLean, Virginia, which is right outside of Washington, D.C., considered Northern Virginia. I lived with two pets, my pug dog named Faust and an old cat named Tessie. In May 2018, I was asleep in my apartment with my dog and cat in bed with me. My mattress was on the floor at this point because I was building a bed frame I had gotten from Ikea. There was a large metal part, about 35 pounds if I remember correctly, that ran down the center of the bed frame. I had all the pieces leaning against the wall by my bed. They had been there for days and I had never thought that they might fall. They seemed secure. I was woken up around 3 a.m. by the 35-pound metal bar hitting me straight on the head. My pets ran away and seemed very upset, but I barely remembered what they were doing in the moment. I remember how bad it hurt. My hand went up to my forehead to feel it and there was a huge bump, so I ran to the bathroom and I had a cartoonishly large bump on my head. I felt very sick and I didn't know what to do, so I just grabbed an ice pack and laid back down and fell back asleep almost instantly. When I woke up, I felt very ill. The bump had subsided a bit, but it was all sore, bruised, and puffy. I eventually asked my boyfriend to drive me to the emergency room because I thought maybe I had a bad concussion. Sure enough, the doctors confirmed it was a concussion and I was completely out for weeks, which ended up being a total of 3-4 months. After I recovered a bit, maybe 5 or so months after the concussion, I started to have some very bad, vivid nightmares. One in particular stood out to me and is still the worst nightmare I've ever had. The nightmare starts off with me walking around outside at night, in a neighborhood. In the dream, it felt familiar, but I don't recognize the houses or anything. I knew somehow that I was walking back home from a friend's house. I saw the back of the house and took a shortcut through some bushes to get to the front of the house. When I came out of the bushes to the front yard, I was covered in big black spiders and webs. They kind of seemed to keep appearing on me as I shook them off and made my way to the front door. On the porch of the house, I saw some red hair. My eyes followed the red hair to the front door, which was slightly cracked open. The hair led inside the house somewhere. So I push open the door and everything was red and dark. It was like the whole house was dark, except there was a red light eliminating just the front space where I entered. I kept following the red hair with my eyes. The hair was impossibly long, but eventually I saw the source. There was an old woman in a rocking chair. She was barely visible in the far right corner of the room I walked into. Covered in shadows, but I could still make her out. Her eyes were closed, but her mouth was moving. She was whispering something in a language I couldn't understand. I had a hard time taking my eyes off of her, but I saw something moving to the left of me. Eventually, I look over to my left and I see a black humanoid figure sitting cross-legged on the floor, facing me. The creature had some sort of old books piled around it, but jars of different herbs or plants. It was holding a small silver chain that had a ball on the end of it, which looked like smoke was coming out of it. He was holding it up and it was moving back and forth. Its skin was black with a white, ashy, peeling texture, kind of burnt looking. It had these pointed ears, or horns. I got the impression that it was very tall and it had some sort of a male energy. I looked it in the eyes, and suddenly I noticed it had been staring right at me. Its mouth was moving, and seemed to match up with exactly the whispers that were coming out of the old woman's mouth. Right as I locked eyes with it, I've never had a nightmare that felt like that. The house and the nightmare also felt full, as if there were other people there, but I couldn't see them. Or like they were up in a bedroom somewhere else in the house. I had a couple of nightmares of me using the talking board and communicating with something, which did worry me. That was the first thing that connected anything to the board initially. Before then, I didn't even think about the board. The last thing that happened before I got rid of the board may have been sleep paralysis or a nightmare. I'm not really sure which. I was asleep on my back in bed. It was nighttime, and I either woke up or dreamt about me sleeping in my bed in a dark room. I remember seeing the floor, and it was completely covered in snakes. Everything was so dark, and I remember feeling very scared, but not really being able to move. I don't know. I can't confirm either way. I just remember everything being kind of shadowy, more shadowy than normal. I brought these things up to my then-boyfriend, and he told me to get rid of the board. I gave it to a family member who said they would get rid of it. The family member I gave it to just told me to try not to think about it anymore, and he never told me how he disposed of it. I assume he just threw it in the trash. Ever since, I have been fine. I never really thought of it as one big story, but part of me thinks that all of it was from the board. Either that, or I had a concussion that broke my third eye, and I became some communicator or something. Anyway, thanks so much for reading, if you even read any of this at all. Wow. Okay. That's an intense story. That's one of the more intense ones. I just want to quickly make reference to episode 190 of Astonishing Legends. That was back in October of 2020. We had Brandon Hodge on to talk about the history of talking boards. His website is Mysterious Planchette. That's P-L-A-N-C-H-E-T-T-E dot com. He has a huge collection of boards and planchettes. And while I didn't see the Swami Mystery Talking Board there on his website, I did find it on another website, the MuseumofTalkingBoards.com. Here's what it said about this particular board at that page. The 1940s saw a virtual cornucopia of artistic and colorful talking boards. Perhaps the most beautiful were Haskellite's Egyptian-themed mystic boards and mystic trays. Other major players were two Chicago novelty companies, Giftcraft and Lee Industries. Adorned with everything from wizards to cannibals, these talking boards were wonderful departures from Fold's simple number boards. Giftcraft's popular Swami featured a flying carpet scene and a genie consulting a crystal ball. You know, when we had Brandon on, he talked about how just everybody started making them when they started selling. So many companies were making them. And he has a just wall-to-wall maximalist situation at his house with Ouija boards everywhere, all different kinds. Yes, I'm sure he has one of these, but I just didn't see it on his website. But anyway, there's a lot going on here. And it's interesting to me, too, because Nina is not even sure that the board and what happened to her is connected. But when you think about this, I mean, first of all, if you've ever taken a hit like that on the head, which I have, man, it is horrible. Horrible. Just like the jarring feeling of like when I read about that bar falling on her. And then she's out for four months dealing with recovery from that. It's just a nightmare. But my question for you, Forrest, is, you know, do you think that a concussion or this injury could have led to such a distinct series of dreams and nightmares? The other thing I will say, too, about her having the one dream where she's walking through the bushes and she comes out covered in spiders. I've had a recurring waking nightmare of like being covered in spiders before, which I've mentioned on our main show. But I'm never out in the wild. It's a waking nightmare where I wake up and I feel like something crawling on me and I lift the covers up and I look under the covers at my own body and there's thousands of spiders everywhere. And I jump all the way out of bed. Yeah. It hasn't happened to me in a while. It's like I'd say at the most it never happened more than once every 18 months and it hasn't happened in a long time now. But I'm so convinced they're real when I wake up. But I digress. You're very symbolic. Spiders can mean a lot of different things. And I'm not afraid of spiders, by the way. Yeah, I know you're not in real life. Well, no, there's 200 of them under the sheets with you. See how cute that is. It's all context. But from what I've read about Native American symbolism about the spider is that it can have a positive effect, too, and that some cultures in Native American tradition will call it a grandmother spider. And that is a keeper and weaver of stories. And so it's a symbol of wisdom and of storytelling and lore and also tradition and it can be consulted. So it's not necessarily a bad thing, but certainly I think we're conditioned to just be afraid of spiders to keep away from them. But in this, in the dream, the things that stuck out with me, well, first of all, we've covered so many stories of this. And one thing that we were reminded of when we did our last Halloween story of a collection of stories, how much they are tied to the subconscious and dreams. And that they are the platform and medium of communication with the other side because it's the easiest, I think, and we make a connection there. It's such a mysterious world. But that dream world is where we get these messages clearly that we can't often do in waking real life because we're busy with other stuff. So when your subconscious takes over in your sleep or the unconscious, which is there's a slight difference between the two, that that's when these messages and imagery come through. And yes, I do believe that you can get an injury on the head and it's just biochemical in that you were experiencing things that have triggered something in your brain. But from the other descriptions, I think there is something else in addition to that going on here and that there is a supernatural spiritual element to the story that has now maybe with that bump on the head, it knocked the door open a little wider for something to come through. And maybe the thing falling over is she said, I can picture that completely. I know what that Ikea bed is with the slats, I think. And then there's a metal support bar that runs the length of it. And yeah, it's heavy. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I had friends that had that bed and helped them put it together. But, and that falling over from a standing position would put a serious knock on you as it did. And again, that's a, you know, it's a bad head injury, but then you wonder if that was knocked over for a reason. Is this kind of, was that connected? I think our writer here is wondering that herself. You do wonder like, okay, was this a series of events all connected with the Swami board and messages coming through? And then the thing that got me is the description of this creature in this dream, in the red hair. I can just totally picture this. I've had similar dreams like that. When I was a child, about a totally dark house with a red light being bathed in red glow of light. Oh, yes. I've heard you tell that story. Yeah. I wasn't afraid, but it was a very, that's what the most curious thing is as a child, like I had these horrific, and it was a recurring dream for a little while. Like maybe five or six dreams like that were seem very real. Yeah. And it was an old timey house and it was a horrific scene, but I wasn't afraid in the dream. And I wasn't afraid when I woke up. It was just like, and maybe it was watching too many horror films as a kid, but the spiders are one thing. But yes, getting to the old woman with the red hair trail leading in as a kind of a hellish Rapunzel. And then something, here's just story elements. And again, if you're, she's making this all up, I applaud all the, the really good descriptive story elements to it for the, for the fictional aspect. But I will take this at its word as being true. Speaking or whispering in a language you cannot understand. Very, everybody, I know, because now the trend is like, well, stop saying demons. It's not demons for everything. It's not the, you know, that's your go-to. It's not the answer for everything. Uh, but sometimes it is, I believe, but it is, it is the popular trend now to admonish that like, uh, is seeking. There's a, uh, there's a connection there, but not necessarily demonic, but something is again, taking this dream as something supernatural, let's say from the other side and of the, of the night, this humanoid figure legs crossed. That's another indicator, like an old yogi, old books, like grimoires, jars of different herbs and plants that speaks to me like something like, uh, or hedge witchcraft would have. And, uh, of course, uh, a healer. Something with a lot of knowledge. Yeah, right. Something, there's, uh, there's herbs there. It sounds like, uh, folk medicine or just old, uh, you know, like a shaman might have. The small silver chain with a ball in the, on the end of it being like a thurible. Right. The incense burners you see in, uh, Roman Catholic and Orthodox churches where the priest will swing that. That was the first thing I thought of. Yeah, exactly. And, and smoking, you, you know, with frankincense and myrrh and things to get rid of bad spirits. Right. Or something called a censer, S-C-E-N-S-E-R, I believe. And there's another type, I believe, of, uh, herbal dispenser or incense burner, which is a long rod with a ball under it. And it escapes me at the moment. I don't have time to look it up, but a fungus or bacteria was named after it, I think, uh, before the, uh, the 20th century, uh, because it resembled that, uh, what a priest will wave in a, um, a ceremony, again, to dispel bad spirits. But in this case, this thing sounds like it's bad and it's using these items. Yeah. And again, you have to go to the pointed ears and horns. So it was very tall male energy, but it's putting words into the old woman's mouth. Like it's controlling her like a puppet master. So very visually interesting and scary. That is not a dream I would want to have. Yeah. And I would just, was looking at the uses for a censer historically and you're right, C-E-N-S-E-R. Just quickly glancing at the Wikipedia page on this, which was the first thing I thought of when I, when reading that description, although I confess, I did not know the terminology for it. What's interesting is it talks about, you know, they're not really sure. It goes way, way back to China, actually. And they're, they're not sure a lot of all the original purposes. And it talks a little bit about incense. Like you mentioned, it talks about spiritual use of cannabis, possibly religious and spiritual use of that. Another thing that's interesting is that it says here in the far East, it was something used to tell time because it took a, it was safe. It was not really a fire hazard that took a specific amount of time for something to burn. So you do wonder if you're dealing with something here that was independent of Nina's mind, if her mind wasn't making this up and there was some kind of being there presenting itself from another plane of existence. What was the message with the censer in its case? Could it be like, to me, that's what's intriguing to think that it was a passage of time kind of thing, but, but who knows? I'm just cherry picking that because I like it. Well, I'll just make this point here. Our guest, Brandon, who had all the talking boards. Yes. Of course, we asked him like, Hey, have you had anything weird happen in your house? Because you're just, it's just chock full, every wall space covered and every corner with a spirit talking board. And he said, Nope, because I don't use them. And so, well, there may be other things going on. Like, it's never just one thing, folks. It's like, there's a lot of other factors I believe going on when things happen of a supernatural nature. But yeah, he's just careful. Well, it's like, no, just to me, it's just kind of odd curios and stuff I like to collect and I don't use them. And so it may not be the board itself. Although there are haunted objects, I believe. I think in this case, with all that stuff, he's just not into channeling things. He's just collecting. Well, I think, you know, people, a lot of people, especially more lately, I feel like in the past five or 10 years, have been hearing a lot about manifestation. And generally people are trying to manifest positive things, you know, a pay raise, a new car, or enough money for a down payment for a house or a house itself, whatever. If you believe in manifestation, you have to believe that it's possible to manifest something negative, too. And maybe that's all ghosts and these kinds of experiences are. Maybe you're just manifesting the opposite of a positive thing for yourself. You're manifesting the darkness. You're spiritual hitchhiking. You're just picking up people by the side of the supernatural road there. You don't know what they're up to. That's also something, I've mentioned this before, I can't be aware now, but in listening to a astral projection hypnosis, the doctor saying, you will see beings there. They can be other people that are astral traveling. They can be other creatures that live there in this plane of a fourth dimensional world or existence or just another dimension. And there can be beings or creatures there that will help and guide you, that are meant to help you along with good intentions to a spiritual journey that you're seeking. And then there are beings and creatures that, quote, do not have your best interests in mind and they are out to harm you. And I thought, well, that's scary. Why would I want to do that then? Although I'm fascinated by the procedure and I think I'm not yet talking to anybody that can describe experiences that they've had or how they got them this astral travel. But just that was an interesting description. I've heard that before. And it's like, well, it's like anywhere else, New York City, walk down the street, there's good people that will tell you directions to the Guggenheim. And then there are people there that will try to rob you and hurt you and for their own reasons. And then there's people, uh, and in the astral plane that are just neutral. Like they, they're doing their own thing. They don't care about you so much. They're not going to hurt you or harm you. They're just like, they're just very neutral. So also sounds like, uh, the alien agenda. Some things are neutral. Some things are helpful. Some things are have their own plans and they involve you and not a good way. So the way you protect yourself is to envision talking about manifesting this ball or bubble or enclosure of bright, protective white light around you. And that's, that's how you protect yourself. And you have to be a good judge of character here and everywhere else on the reality planes. Well, Nina, your experience with the Swami mystery talking board serves as a cautionary tale. While our curiosity may tempt us to interact with the unknown, some doors are best left unopened. The astonishing dead letter office is hosted by Scott Philbrook and Forrest Burgess and is executive produced by Tess Feifel. The show is edited and mixed by Sarah Voorhees-Wendell at VW Sound. The theme is based on the astonishing legends theme by Judson Crane at Founder Music, arranged by Alan Carissia, who composes all the other music in the show. Tommy Beaver Design created the logo. The announcer is John Bowler. That's me. The stories are lightly edited for length, content, and readability, but otherwise presented as they're sent to us. We're always looking for more dead letters. So if you have a story of your own you'd like to share, email it to deadletteroffice at astonishinglegends.com. 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