S1 Ep48: Die Fratzen

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Check the carton for the farm name, pop it into vitalfarms.com slash farm, and boom, you're looking at the pasture. So next time you're in the store, look for the black carton in the egg aisle and visit vitalfarms.com to learn more. Vital Farms. Good eggs. No shortcuts. 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 Blanket Fortiana as we dig through your intriguing messages to the Astonishing Dead Letter office. Tonight's episode, Defraught Sin. In July of 2017, we did a three-part series on Astonishing Legends about the exorcism of Anneliese Michel. Her personal experiences started in Klingenberg, Bavaria, Germany, when she was just 16 years old in 1976. And her case was significant because it was alleged that her attempted exorcism led to her death, setting the stage for legal proceedings against the Catholic priest who oversaw them. Now, this story might be familiar to you if you've seen the movie The Exorcism of Emily Rose, which was adapted from Anneliese's story. In the course of this series, we discussed the concept of defraught sin. These are devil faces that Anneliese saw that were so frightening to her, she refused to even describe them. The fraught sin comes up frequently in folklore and in a multitude of legends and tales from throughout history. Yes, and tonight's dead letter comes to us from a listener who's had their own personal experience with defraught sin. And as if that weren't enough, doppelgangers as well. All right, here we go. Hello, Astonishing Legends team. I had been binging the show from episode one not long ago and just finished listening to the Anneliese Michel case. I know these episodes are kind of old for you guys now, but I wanted to share my own experiences involving the fraught sin. I was hesitant to do it because it's very personal, which is why I've asked to remain anonymous. I had previously never heard a description for it before, but as soon as it was described in your episodes on Anneliese, I had flashbacks of previous experiences in my mid-twenties. As of this writing, I'm now 34. I would say I am a non-denominational Christian. I started seriously being involved when I was 19 or so with my relationship with Christ. I had struggled in many areas, like most people do, religious or not, with drinking, nicotine, unmarital sex, etc. Many times when I felt like I was following God's will and not doing those things, I felt the Holy Spirit and felt the best in my life. Other times I had bouts where I had a lack of discipline and let loose. I remember on two different occasions I had drank, chewed, and or maybe had smoked marijuana, which was and still is legal in Washington State, where I live. I had been checking myself out in the mirror one night while under the influence of that, and suddenly became disgusted with myself and stopped. But the following couple of days, when laying in bed at night, I had this nightmare, and in it, this face appeared in my dreams, in the center of my view. I would describe it as a demonic version of myself that was very intricate, but at the same time was morphing, and I could not draw it or ask someone to draw it for me, even if I wanted to, just like you mentioned on the show. It felt like a mocking version of myself, and I couldn't shake the feeling that it was more than just a dream. The following days, as I was laying in bed about to fall asleep, and to be clear, I was not under the influence at the time, I saw another version of myself coming from the bathroom to my bed and walking in an unnatural way. This me was kind of moving in frames almost, and in various colors. I was very frightened. In addition to that, I was seeing flashing images of beings that I've never ever seen before, while just laying there in my bed. These beings were just as detailed as the one I saw walking. I would describe them as monstrous, evil, almost cartoon-like, and moving around in the same fashion. They appeared one after the other. Mind you, I was not sleeping but wide awake lying there, seeing them in my mind's eye, if you will. I did have a vivid imagination, and had had vivid dreams and created a lot of art growing up, but my mind did not normally conjure up things like these, which were so detailed, and styled in a way that was not organic to me. I knew something was wrong, and this was different. I was convinced I was being shown these things from outside forces, and it left me deeply disturbed. I specifically remember walking out of my apartment once when it was a nice sunny day, and all of a sudden, that face of myself randomly appeared right in front of my mind's eye, like it was almost physically there in front of me. Mind you, I am very rational, and have an open mind believing there's a place for mental health, science, and religion. I'm not a professional in any of them, but I feel like I did know the difference between something spiritual in nature versus not. I do not have a history of mental health diagnoses, or any physical health problems for that matter, so this was very concerning for me. I sought assistance through pastors, prayer, repentance, and time, and it eventually went away. But it was one of the memorable experiences I had that I can remember in my mid-twenties. A similar, though distinct, experience occurred later for me. I had a nightmare like before. Same thing, but a different face appeared in this nightmare, like a grotesque, overweight, scary version of myself, and it then flashed into a demonic, different type of face before vanishing. This time, the unease lingered. I felt heavy, like something was wrong for weeks after that. I was feeling depressed, and not myself, in a low place. I went to my pastor at the time and explained to him that I felt like something was attached to me, and he prayed over me and said that he saw something. This man I fully trust, and is not one to make things up like this. As before, I defeated it through prayer, repentance, and time, and all these feelings went away. I could tell the presence was gone. I firmly believe these visions and beings were not drug-induced. I've used marijuana responsibly at other times, and had nothing like that come close to happening. I believe this is a very real thing, and these experiences only strengthened my belief that something spiritual was going on with Annalise. It's possibly intertwined with her medical or mental health issues. Like Scott and Forrest, I believe human nature is gray. We are not black and white. Her story is very sad and unfortunate. The veil between the living and the dead is thinner than this commercial break. Ever notice that feeling your worst also seems to happen at the worst time in the worst places? Like sudden nausea at 9 p.m. when you're out of town. Really? Now? Fortunately, with Hartford HealthCare's HHC 24-7 app, you can get answers, diagnosis, prescriptions, even speak live with clinicians anytime, anywhere. So maybe there's never a good time to be sick, but at least the best care's always there. Download the app at your app store or HHC247.org. Let's get back to unraveling this dead letter. All right, so firstly, this listener did want to remain anonymous, so we're respecting that wish, but we would like to thank you for sending this story in. It's pretty fascinating to me. It's such a personal experience, and that's a cool thing that we've been getting more of lately is people sharing really personal stuff. And I felt like this was a pretty balanced perspective because our listener was open to the idea that there might be mental health explanations alongside spiritual interpretations, which is something that we talked about in the Annalise Michelle series, which I would say go listen to that if you want more depth on that, because obviously there's all kinds of things that happen, especially in that age range with schizophrenia and that sort of stuff. And we take all that into account. We're not doctors, but we do talk about that in the Annalise Michelle series. But coming back to what's going on here, I wonder about the nature of these experiences and also the listeners being very honest about, well, you know, I did use some marijuana at this point, which is legal in Washington state, I guess, but yeah, so I didn't know that. It was legal in California when I lived there. It's not legal in North Carolina. There are levels of legality. I think, you know, at first it was for medical use and then where the big hurdle is for recreational use. And so Washington state currently. Yes, Colorado. Yeah, it has, right. So it's in certain states, it has been approved for recreational use as well as medicinal. It's not hallucinogenic though. It never has been. And there's no one, that is not what happens. No, but to your point, you know, you hit on a word here, I think that really nails the theme of this, which is personal. It's a personal experience. And what I mean by that as a differentiation is that to me, it seems like a message rather than, look, it could be a medical condition. And I think a lot of people, that's the mundane explanation is that you're having some kind of mental health episode that, you know, you worked out, whether through your own practice or it just naturally went away. I think that can happen as well where things is kind of unexpectedly clear up. But that's the go-to of, it's an easy explanation for this or an easy out and just saying like, well, yeah, you were in a low place. It's a mental health issue, not a spiritual one that could be calmed or cured with medication, which was not the case here. I don't think there was any medication applied. These were all, you could say, psychologically and spiritually, clerically therapeutic. You're talking to your clergy person, getting some counseling, some self-reflection, which is a lot of it. As we know, psychotherapy has a lot to do with like, how did that make you feel? Which is what self-reflection and introspection, that it gets you to solve your own problems over many years. So yeah, there could be an aspect of that, but again, it wasn't cured on the medical side. And as was mentioned in our Annalise series, I believe, is that she stopped going to medical professionals or telling them about everything that she was experiencing because there's no answers from them. And so that also, it just quickly reminds me of, you know, our good friend, John, who sadly passed away from the sludge entity episodes, is that you, when you go to the medical professionals and you tell them these outrageous things that are happening, it's like, okay, well, here's some medication and here's a child psychologist. And that only goes so far. And sometimes that helps. And not to say that if it does cure it, that it turned out to be purely medical or vice versa in that, you know, these things are kind of unexplainable in a way. So, but there's a, there's a limit to that. And so the one thing that John always told us is, you know, cause again, it's easy to just label it and paint it as that, especially coming from people with no medical background. That's the biggest thing that we, that kind of is a pet peeve of mine is when people will diagnose these things. It's like, okay, well, are you a mental health professional or you have a medical degree? If you're citing, this can be, you know, this is just a problem for Western medicine. What's your background? It's like, well, I don't have any, it just sounds like that. Or I knew somebody that had something like this, or even I went through this and it was something similar. Yeah. You also cannot diagnose someone through a story they told that you heard secondhand on a podcast. Like that's not how it works. Diagnosis, which is why we're not diagnosing. We're just putting out possibilities. Right. And you see these on the, I guess you call them pseudo news shows, but you know, something sensational. They'll consult a neurologist or some other doctor who has to immediately point out like, look, I do not diagnose people based on your, just a description or a video clip. Right. You have to see them and they have to undergo treatment. So I would ask people not to, to refrain from that where you're just like, oh, it's probably this. Yeah. Sarah and the Spider Woman. You know, that's a condition that- That's right. You can't use that brush to paint everything. That's something like that. Right. And I wanted to, I'm glad you brought that up. I did want to point that one out because she was hallucinating and, but she had anti-NMDA receptor encephalitis. Right. And that's the name of the episode that we had with her on it, Sarah and the Spider Woman. So you can find that if you want to find out more about a story that specifically a medical condition was leading to very frightening hallucinations. But it wasn't just faces. It wasn't, it didn't fall into the category of defraudson. It was, it was actually much worse. It was more in the poltergeist, the movie category. Yeah. But it was, you know, like I said, it was a static visual image, if I remember correctly, that was super vivid and real looking, real as anything else, which is, that's the frightening part. To a degree. But I remember it was standing at the bottom of the stairs. She, you know, got so frustrated with it. She threw a pillow and it went right through it. And then I think it's like, well, what happened then? Did it react? Like, no, it was just an image. And it was kind of a very telling action on her part because it's like, okay, it didn't respond. So is this some kind of story that's being played out of my mind? Is this real? Yeah, didn't grab the pillow and say, pillow fight. You're right. And come running up the stairs. Didn't grab something else. Yeah. Throw pillow with a catchy live, love, laugh slogan on it. You know, it was just, it was just a static image. So it was like, okay, that gives me some information here in that maybe it's just a visual echo or some image that's being projected in the mind's eye as our author here describes. And so you kind of run with that. But I was, the point I was making about the sludge entity is that, you know, again, the biggest criticisms we had were from people who were not medical professionals, just saying, criticizing John and his family. Like, well, you should have just took it on more doctors. You should have just got more help. How dare you stop giving treatment? Folks that aren't following this, the sludge entity show was about parents who had a child that was undergoing something very unusual like Annalise Michel. And they sought out different treatments and none of those worked. Yeah. It wasn't just a mental or visual ailments here. This turned physical with a real physical malady. And this is where it's so tricky in that there are people that we know that did go through something similar or had echoes of this condition that said, well, it really sounds like a type of severe OCD. And everybody, again, not knowing much medical knowledge, people think of OCDs for what we know from the movies and other people are just common parlance of like, oh, that means you check the oven knobs five times before you leave the house. Well, that could be one condition of that. But really, there's all these other types of behaviors that can be associated with that and affectations. And hallucinations. Exactly. So that's what I'm saying. So getting back to John, you know, he's like, look, I can understand where people just thought we didn't give our son enough treatment. But all we were getting towards the end is when you tried everything and all the psychologists and neurologists and all the tests and machines and CT scans and this and that, and there's no answers. It's like, well, we don't know. Bring him back if he gets worse. And that's the end of it. That's as far as Western medical science could go in that case. And he just kept getting worse. It's like, well, how many times do we come back? Nothing's happening here. He just keeps getting worse. Like, well, bring him back. And then you're at home with a sick kid. Right. And so you try to do other, as much as you can. And so in this case here with a story, again, this is kind of a very personal battle. So if you, even I think if it's somehow just made up in your own mind that's glitching that has some problem, it's a very personal message, perhaps something from the unconscious or subconscious to your conscious mind. You know what I'm saying? It's a message like something's wrong here. I need to get your attention. I can believe that it's entirely within your own consciousness that's producing these effects to call attention to this. And yet it led to, you know, some kind of depression or just feeling awful. Yeah. But it helped correct itself in a way. Or it could be external in that, yeah, I believe that that's also possible. There could be something like spirit oppression happening. Right. So it's really hard to diagnose here. But it's easy, what I'm saying is that it's easy to just point to mental illness of some sort and say, well, that's all it was. Again, without having any kind of medical background or knowledge on this or knowing the case. As we always say in the show, just check every route. Do everything. You know, we always tell people just don't go to one, one thing if you think that's working. And that goes for starting off with a Western medical approach. And if that doesn't help, we're not saying just go find somebody on TikTok to start doing all these rituals and practices. We're saying, read up on it. Arm yourself with knowledge, which is what our friend John did. He just started reading everything. And it's like, well, could it be this? And they found some relief through non-traditional practices. So I've always said with that series, it's hard to argue with success. And so I'm very glad that our author here was able to find some relief eventually, but it's all very terrifying when you're going through it. And so the other thing that reminds me is the parade. So now that we talk about the aspects of the actual experience, it's like the Muppets coming out of the TV or things coming out of a closet in a kind of parade fashion. Like here we all are, pay attention to us and moving erratically. it's nightmarish, which is essentially what it is. So yes, it could be a hypnagogic, a hypnopompic experience, especially between those zones between fully asleep and waking up. But there's something about this story though that's just more visceral or tangible in a way rather than just nightmares. Yeah. As real as they sound. Yeah. And the other thing that I'll say about the schizophrenic component is that drug use absolutely enhances it. That's something that I know just even as a, you know, from whatever basic cursory research we've done over the years. But that's not always the case of what's going on. I think it's interesting that our listener has, you know, seems to have a strong spiritual side and that became the thing that helped them get through this. So there's something to be said for that and your faith in that. You know, other people will be like, well, the religion is a placebo or whatever, but it's like, it kind of doesn't matter what the other people think. It only matters what you think and what works for you. And we've also had tons of letters from people who say, I'm not religious at all. I'm actually, or you could be atheist and letters that claim it's like, well, this only happened to you because you're so religious and that's, you know, that your mind is saying is going to use those tropes and images against you because you're, you're so into this or you've been indoctrinated in some way because of, uh, these religious teachings and practices. But it's happened to people who have no religious affiliation or, or just agnostic or atheist in a way. And as they've always told us, it's even more frightening and shocking when you don't believe in something and it presents itself as real. Because then now normally are you experiencing these things as terrifying, but you're questioning your own belief system. Well, as we've said in the past with some of the scary shows that we've covered over or topics we've covered over the years, it's a lot of these things don't care whether you believe in them. For the things that exist outside of you, if you believe any of this at all, if you believe in spiritual malevolence and things that aren't necessarily connected to mental health, which also mental health issues don't care if you believe in them either. Right, right. So pretty much the case is nothing cares if you believe in it that's affecting you in this way. That's not part of the equation. Right. Now let's take a look at the spiritual aspect of this in that if it is a demonic version of yourself, then is it something messing with your mind, like I said, trying to shame you or mock you in a way. Right. Because you are in that low point and so it's using that against you. We've seen that as well with people who are in a deep, dark place. That's the old trope of you can't throw a bunch of knives at you from the kitchen drawer and stab you to death, but it can needle you down and wear you down so much that you get into such a dark place that you end up with self-harm or some other substance abuse and eventually that's how it wins and takes control is that it just wears you down and it uses you to do it. That's right. And so maybe this is the approach here, but it's interesting when you have those feelings of self-doubt and again, it's like, yeah, it's easy to say from the outside again that, oh, this person had, they smoked a joint and then they drank and chewed some tobacco and now they're having these hallucinations. It's like, maybe, but for most of the folks I think who do that regularly will tell you that these types of experiences aren't part of that package. Right. It doesn't get that far. Even if you were on DMT, that's something else, okay, and that's pretty extreme and then you may be seeing weird things in the mirror with yourself. That's certainly been reported, but here, it's, yeah, the morphing, not being able to draw it, having kind of an amnesia about what you're seeing here. Right, which was, that was with Annalise too. She said she couldn't describe it or draw it really. Exactly, yeah. Yeah. And so, yeah, it was a mocking version of yourself and we've heard that before from people who did, weren't on anything and believed that they were being attacked. Remember the Rain Man episode? Yes. Here's a quick little aside on that, which I found interesting. There is a channel here on your Samsung Plus TV that is all the old Unsolved Mysteries and- Yes, I know. I watch that channel. So, yeah. So, it runs all the old Robert Stack ones. They had one episode where the producers were talking about the making of the show. So, it was kind of behind the scenes about making the old 90s show and how they went about it early or pre-internet age, which was fascinating. So, back then, they had people stationed regionally around the country that would scan newspapers for them and find these interesting stories. Right, right. And that would be forward, you know, through a telephone bank and just people calling in. But in any case, with that Rain Man episode, when the crew, because they would do reenactments, if you remember, at least for Unsolved Mysteries when they covered it. And the one thing the producer said that was kind of freaky because they asked her, like, what do you think weird happened covering? She goes, yeah, one time when we covered that, you know, we shot some original creative footage reenactments for that episode. The crew was staying on the first floor of this hotel and, you know, they all had adjoining rooms and after they did the interview with the real guy who this happened to, they woke up in the morning and all their rooms had been flooded with water in their rooms and out in the hallway but only their rooms of the crew members and production staff that did the episode. She said that was weird and they did not, they never found out where the water came from. It's not like it was a burst pipe. They never found out why it was just their rooms and no other guests on that floor. So, pretty freaky. According to IMDb, which frequently is wrong about this stuff I've learned over the years but according to IMDb, it's episode six of season one of Paranormal Witness and you can currently stream it on Peacock or rent or buy it on Prime Video according to IMDb right now. Yeah, so that's where we saw it and, but getting back to that what was described by, is it Dennis I think was the, was the guy who, he believed his, his evil grandfather who abused him when he was alive. It was a very evil old guy when he died. Don, Don Decker. Don Decker. Don Decker, that's right. And then when he passed away his grandfather continued to harass him and spirit oppress him from the other side and abuse him. And he said it was often a mocking kind of tone personally of just belittling him and mocking him and ridiculing him and trying to wear him down and just, you know, get him basically to harm himself, I think. And so it's interesting that that's, some of these themes and tones carry on with these different experiences that people have wrote into us about. And here, it's just like something that is taking your own, I mean, here's the thing, if somebody else mocks you, maybe you get upset, you got, you got some thin skin and it's upsetting, but it's somebody else's opinion. When it comes from yourself, that's different. It cuts even more deeply, I think. Yeah, absolutely. The other component of this story that I want to touch on before we wrap this episode up is because I am particularly fond of the strange appearances of things and the stories that we've covered on Astonishing Legends and also the Dead Letter Office. And this particular description that our listeners sent in of these figures moving in frames, as they said, and monstrous cartoon-like beings and colors changing and flashing in and out of existence, that sounded really fascinating to me, you know, visually. And of course, you get into all these things, you know, if you believe any of this at all, it's like, well, here, again, are we looking at something that's coming from the mind or are we looking at something from the outside world or what kind of thing would create that kind of imagery? And it's a fascinating idea and scary, too, whenever you see a well-executed science fiction, show, even the old Star Treks where somebody's trapped in a different time is passing differently for someone or they're flashing in and out. I know there's an old Star Trek where you just see Kirk like in a space suit like morphing and bending and he's half existing and half not existing because he's caught in some other universe. It's like, that stuff is scary, you know? It's hard to imagine what it would be like to personally experience something like that. Well, again, you go to other examples, again, not just sleep because getting back to that story, he had an experience in broad daylight of that flashing in his mind's eye and feeling like something was there and the feeling lasting for weeks that something was wrong and then, you know, the pastor that he trusted said he also saw something. That's right. Take that for what it's worth. But again, he's not one to make things up like this and he defeated it through prayer, very common tool against these kind of things that whether you believe in that or not from the outside to the experiencer, sometimes it helps, often it helps. So they could tell the presence was gone as well as they could tell that it was there, that something from the outside was affecting them. So there you go. As they said, again, I believe this is a very real thing and these experiences only strengthen my belief that something spiritual was going on now with Annalisa, but that's something else. Again, that's somebody just relating and feeling like finding some connection to this other story. Yes. Those are two different experiences but I leave this to the person who experienced it and how they felt about it because again, getting back to my original main first point is that this is a very personal experience as you said. Well, thank you for sending in such a deeply personal story. It's the kind of story that people get nervous about being judged and we just want to be clear that's not what we do here. It takes a lot to share your personal background and the nature of experiences like these and you're right. What happened to Annalise was horrible no matter what the explanation was for her death. Folks, if you haven't heard that series and want to take a deep dive, look for The Devil and Annalise Michel in our back catalog. Her last name's M-I-C-H-E-L. It's available for free online on most platforms. If you have a story like this or another one that you think should be heard, send it to deadletteroffice at astonishinglegends.com. We'll see you next week. Enjoying a healthy dinner that tastes great means eating out at a pricey restaurant, right? Wrong. Healthy Choice Simply Steamers are delicious and healthy. The Tray & Tray Steam technology delivers crisp veggies and tender protein and tasty selections like Healthy Choice Simply Steamers grilled chicken and broccoli alfredo. It's a satisfying meal with 28 grams of protein and nothing artificial. Healthy Choice Simply Steamers. What having it all tastes like. Ever notice that feeling your worst also seems to happen at the worst time in the worst places? Like sudden nausea at 9 p.m. when you're out of town. Really? Now? Fortunately, with Hartford HealthCare's HHC 24-7 app, you can get answers, diagnosis, prescriptions, even speak live with clinicians anytime, anywhere. So maybe there's never a good time to be sick, but at least the best care is always there. Download the app at your app store or HHC 247.org. I saw this app. I got a hit. In the new limited series, DTF St. Louis, Jason Bateman, David Harbour, and Linda Cardellini star as three suburbanites who spice up their love lives. Wow. Don't miss the new HBO original limited series, DTF St. Louis, Sundays at 9 on HBO Max. I'm U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy. We all get distracted when we drive, whether it's from our phones or kids in the backseat bickering. But how we handle these distractions can be a matter of life or death. Before you get on the road for your next road trip, please put your phones on silent and take a mental note to focus on driving. Paid for by NHTSA. A KFC tale in the pursuit of flavor. 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We all get distracted when we drive, whether it's from our phones or kids in the backseat bickering. But how we handle these distractions can be a matter of life or death. Before you get on the road for your next road trip, please put your phones on silent and take a mental note to focus on driving. Paid for by NHTSA.