transcript

Speaker 1:
[00:12] Why is it suddenly cold in this room? You hear footsteps, whispers, or even laughter. You go to check. You feel a presence behind you. And then the fear sets in. I'm K-Town, and you're listening to Paranormal Fears.

Speaker 2:
[00:54] I'm Kala Ambrose, and I'm an author, a wisdom teacher and a paranormal researcher. And I have six books, including the one we're going to talk about today, Spirits of New Orleans, Voodoo Curses, Vampire Legends and Cities of the Dead. I've dedicated my life to this type of work since I was a little girl and onward. And I love to teach about the ancient mystery school teachings from ancient Greece and Egypt and civilizations further back, even than that. And I've seen ghosts and spirits and things of light and dark my whole life. So I don't know if I had a choice. I had to do this. And that's what I do.

Speaker 1:
[01:36] That's awesome. Okay. Now, all right, so let's go back into your early life because you said you started to see spirits and ghosts and things as a child. So can you tell us about some of those experiences and then what some of these entities look like? Were they human or were they something else?

Speaker 2:
[01:54] Absolutely. So I was raised Catholic and we were taught that you have guardian angels around you. So when I first saw beings around me, I guess I'll call them, some of them were very bright, white light. So I said, Oh, okay, that's my guardian angel. And I would say, Oh, you know, I was in bed sleep and I'd wake up cause you know, feel them around and see them. And so I'd be like, Oh, are you my guardian angel here? Let me make some room for you to come lay on the bed. Are you tired? And so at first, that's what I saw that I remember the most when I was very young. As I got older, I started to see other things coming around too, that were more shadowy, not as bright and not as nice. And so I started then to figure out that there were lots of different things. Some looked human, some looked partially human, and some looked like something completely different, not even as much of a form, darker, shadowy, things like that. And so I started, you know, I kept a diary since I was a little girl, and I started to take notes early on. And I used all those notes in my books afterwards, from everything, from what I would see auras around people, the energy around them. Those notes, original notes all these years, became my book about the aura, same with psychic ability and the other things I teach and write about. And I've always kept a journal too of places I go, where I've experienced something with a ghost or spirits or entities or something. And all of those compiled in my research, I guess, since I was very little, just helped my work and helped me to understand that there's a lot more than what we see to this world. And I've always been able to see them with my eyes, as well as many times feel them as well, just energetically. So, there's a little bit of everything out there. And I don't think I've seen all of it, but I've seen a good amount.

Speaker 1:
[03:47] And that's cute. You said you would see the little, you'd see the ghost and you'd be like, okay, you're tired, so get in the bed with me. You know, that's the only thing I've ever heard that one before. Well, let me ask you, did they actually get into the bed with you?

Speaker 2:
[04:02] No, they would kind of just smile, float around, you know. But I was, you know, raised in Louisiana. I'm a good little Southern girl, just trying to take care of people.

Speaker 1:
[04:09] That's funny. I had to ask you. I had to ask you that. When you, you and I talked earlier, but I remember you telling me that, you know, you were just like a child that actually you really knew what you wanted to learn or find out about our world at an early age. Like you were getting the, tell the story about the library books and things like that. I know it's, that's amazing.

Speaker 2:
[04:34] So I came back remembering my past lives. And I could, I told my parents, I'm like, I remember a past life we had together and I explained it to them, where we lived in Eastern Europe, how we died in a carriage in the forest or in a storm going off the sides of a mountain. I'd have all these past life memories of things I did.

Speaker 1:
[04:52] And how old were you when you started to realize those dreams?

Speaker 2:
[04:56] Probably from what I remember, I'd say six, you know, that I remembered having them and talking to my parents about that. And then I would have prophetic dreams. I would tell them things that were going to happen to us or to other people we knew and those type of things where they started paying attention when enough of them happened. And then I was, I began to read really, really young. And so by the time I was like nine or ten, I'd go to the library all the time. And they would call my parents and say, you have to come pick her up. She's ruined another book and you're going to have to buy the book. And what I was doing, I was in the library reading all the books about ancient mythology and all the stories and I was editing them. I was like, that's not how that happened. That's not the true history. And that's not what they're writing about Medusa. That's not true. She, you know, the things on her head meant wisdom, not, you know, how they're trying to describe. So I'd be writing in the books like an editor, just trying to correct it, you know, make things right. And then I'd be talking to adults at the tables and lecturing them on it and saying, no, this is what ghosts actually do. And this is, this is what the history of this actually means. And they thought I was so entertaining, but I ended up with a great library on my own at home because my parents had to buy all those books I wrote in.

Speaker 1:
[06:16] That's crazy. And you know what? I mean, something like you really knew exactly what you were talking about. Did your parents ever try to verify any of the things that you were correcting in those books? Did they ever try to research for you or talk to somebody about what you were saying?

Speaker 2:
[06:33] I wish, but they had their hands. You know, but a lot of it has come out now, even from, you know, when I would write those things now in history. And I watched that even like early 2000, the History Channel started doing documentaries and they would reveal those things. I was teaching things like all kinds of things, like even all kinds of history and things correcting it that have, you know, since come out. And I'd go to Catholic school and I would engage with the Monsignor there and say, Mary Magdalene wasn't a bad person like you're saying. That's not true. And then later, a couple of years later, the church came out and said, oh, she wasn't how we described her to be a lady of ill repute. That wasn't true. And they admitted that sometime later in the late 60s, I think, and finally admitted that it wasn't the truth. So there were some things like that that probably could be verified for what I was saying, but they had their hands full with me because I was reading people's auras, seeing things psychically, having dreams that came true. My father had this friend that would come over. My father noticed that the guy would end up talking to me a lot, and he always had a newspaper with him. We had friends over, my parents had friends of theirs over all the time. But he's like, okay, why is this one guy was talking to my daughter with a newspaper? He knew I loved to read, so he thought, maybe the guy is helping me learn to read. Now, he was showing me the horse races and asking me which ponies names I like the best. I didn't know better. I was picking the right horses and he was going to bed on them. My father caught one day, caught on, and told me that's wrong to do and not to do that. Ever since I've never been able to pick them again, it's like, okay, that's wrong. So don't ask me how I get the lottery numbers. Did any of them win?

Speaker 1:
[08:27] Did any of them win?

Speaker 2:
[08:27] Yes, he was winning. That's why he came back every week. Because my father was like, he was friends with the guy, he's like, this guy's here every weekend, what's up with this? So he finally caught on to what the guy was doing with me.

Speaker 1:
[08:39] That's funny.

Speaker 2:
[08:41] I didn't know because I was little. So I would look at the paper and one name would get bigger to me, it would just grow really big. And I'd be, oh, I like that one, that one has a lot of line around it. And he would just mark them and go.

Speaker 1:
[08:54] Wow. Okay. Yeah, you were in the sweet spot as far as age is concerned with remembering your past lives. I mean, they start around that early age, you know, three, four, five, six, somewhere around there. Then, then supposedly, you know, those memories dissipate, you know, as you get older. Do you still remember some of your past lives vividly or has it pretty much left you?

Speaker 2:
[09:21] Absolutely. So what happens, what is taught in the mystery schools, is, you know, the soft spot on a baby's head of the skull there?

Speaker 1:
[09:31] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[09:31] When a baby's born and they tell you to be careful, it actually takes till age seven before that spot is fully thickened and hard. So that's why children at a very young age are so much more psychic and see through the veil to the other side, because that opening there actually helps them go back and forth. So a lot of children after the age of seven, when that closes and they don't have a reason to use it anymore, and no one's teaching them to keep using it, it closes and they forget about it. But for me, I was born so psychic and so wide open that it never stopped. I actually tried to stop it in high school. I wanted to just be a normal girl and not see all these things and fill these things, and I tried to close it down. And I managed to do it for about maybe three years at most, but it was just so strong in me. It was like fighting in me all the time to come back out. I couldn't, I was just, I was born this way and I had to be this way, you know? And I tried to be, I guess, you know, if we were to talk to Harry Potter, I tried to be a muggle for a while, tried to, you know, fit in, but I like to say, I had to come out of the broom closet and just be me and I did. So yeah, well, you know, I just had to own it.

Speaker 1:
[10:49] Well, what about now? I mean, do you see spirits around you now? Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[10:55] And that's what those Spirits in Orleans book is about, because the publisher is called America's Haunted Road Trip. And they ask different writers to write about a state or a city that they know very well or that they live in. I've written two books for this publisher. The other one is called Ghost Town in North Carolina, where I crossed the whole state looking at haunted sites. But this one is about New Orleans, because it's such a haunted city and I'm from Louisiana. And so I see ghosts, spirits, and other entities all the time. I do readings for people where I go into their Akashic records and ask to travel and talk to them about their past lives. I've studied with all types of teachers to do this type of work, including what I teach now with the mystery schools, which was the old way of doing this, where you had to prove you could do these things in double blind studies. And I'll give you an example. So when, you know, dating myself here, but back in the day, before we had cell phones, we had to call each other right on landlines. And I had a teacher in a different state. And I was at the point where I was ready to graduate from astral traveling. And to show him I could prove, prove that I could do it. So he said, okay, I'm going to pick a day and I'll call you at random. And I'm just going to tell you a person's first name. And you have to go find that person through astral travel. And how you do that is when you think of someone and you know them, you have a cord that connects from you through your aura to that person. Those are the connections that we have with each other. And so he said, I'm going to tell you a name. You won't know this person, but I do. And you have to follow the cord for me to them and find them. I said, okay. So he called me one day. He said, the person's name is Renee. Go find them. So I had to tune in to him and find his cord and find the one that vibrated with the energy known as Renee and then follow that cord to see where I could find it. So I followed it really far. It was in Europe and all of a sudden, I'm standing in this market next to this person I know to be Renee and the person's looking at cheese. And so I'm like, okay, well, first of all, what does Renee look like? It could be man or woman with that name and I see it's a man. And he's looking at cheese and I can't even say the name of the cheese because they're in a foreign language. He's like in Sweden or Switzerland, something like that. I can tell kind of by the way the market looks and the cheese is. So I write down these cheeses, I describe the man, write it all down and come back out of it. And then I have to go call my teacher. So my teacher is in another state here in the US and I call him and tell him. And he told Renee not to tell him where he was going or where he would be. So he just picked a random time. So then he had to hang up with me, go call Renee because he didn't want me to be able to psychically get the information from him as my teacher. So then he went and called Renee and verified with Renee, where were you? And Renee verified, I was in a market buying cheese at this time, blah, blah, blah. So that's how they do a double blind study when you train for this stuff. And then I went on to study it further. I've studied with and done the workshops, like with people who did the Psychic Spy Program that was part of the Army at one time and just all kinds of things like that. I've continued.

Speaker 1:
[14:22] Are you talking about remote viewing?

Speaker 2:
[14:24] Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1:
[14:26] Who did you study with? Who was the instructor?

Speaker 2:
[14:29] So I used to be with the Rhine Research Center. I used to be on the Board of Directors. We'd have all of them there. So Joe McMonacle, I used to do workshops there at the Rhine.

Speaker 1:
[14:38] Wow.

Speaker 2:
[14:38] With remote viewing.

Speaker 1:
[14:39] Yeah, he's one of the big guys. I mean, he's like famous. Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[14:44] So I was involved with the Rhine Research Center for a long time that was part of Duke, and I served on the Board of Directors, and I was the first psychic ever to do that. Most of them are scientists and big researchers like that. But I've been vetted in a lot of places. I teach at Edgar Cayce's ARE, and I'm at the Institute of Placidology, where they do vet you to make sure you can do your thing. I've helped people in military and police work, all kinds of things with even how to read auras and sense them. So if they're going up to a building and you don't know who's inside, you can sense if there's energy there or not, and human energy, I mean. But you could probably do the same thing to sense spiritual. I've been used like that too. I was part of a group that got to stay overnight in the capital of North Carolina, the state capitol, because it's haunted, and they locked us in with some paranormal researchers. I was like the antenna. I could hone in and feel where they were and say, okay, bring the equipment over here. So that was a fun night. We stayed there all night, chasing ghosts. It was a good time.

Speaker 1:
[15:57] Really?

Speaker 2:
[15:58] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[15:59] Did you? Okay. Have you ever? Okay. I got several questions there. We're going to stay there for a second. First of all, is that when you say mystery schools, you're not talking about remote viewing schools, you're talking about something else?

Speaker 2:
[16:11] I'm talking about these were the original ancient mystery schools, what they taught in ancient Egypt and ancient Greece, and times before that, what people call Atlantis, things like that. These are called mystery schools. My first book is about them, Nine Life-Altering Lessons, Secrets of the Mystery Schools Unveiled, and they've been taught student to teacher for thousands of years, passing down the ancient teachings and how to really get to know yourself at the deepest level, the soul level where you know who you are, why you're here, what your purpose is, why you incarnated back as a soul in this lifetime, to do what you're here to do, and that you're not just the personality known as who you are at this time, at this moment, there is just one blip in your overall multiple lifetimes. So I work with students to teach them that. I do a hundred different things because I see the auras so much, I work with colors, I'm part of the International Color Group Marketing Group, where we see future trends and pick what colors are going to be popular 10 years from now, according to the energy and where things are going. And I work with a lot of clients all over the country, well, and universities too, and other countries too, where I see future trends and help them with their businesses and or what they're building and creating and where that's going to go. Because I've always seen kind of what's coming, you know, 10, 15 years, 20 years ahead with manufacturing and different trends and everything.

Speaker 1:
[17:53] Like stock market trends, even stuff like that.

Speaker 2:
[17:56] Yeah, and things where schools are going, where marketing is going, where businesses, what's going to be hot, what's not. I was always able to do that and picture things way ahead. Like I was describing the disruptor for Amazon that was going to come. They would talk about that at a financial convention way back when and was explaining. Now they're called Instacart and Shipt. I was explaining how there would be deliveries that would come to you in two hours instead of people thinking Amazon was fast coming in two days. That's a big disruptor. Every time you have a big disruptor, it changes the market again and again. Talking about 3D printing before it existed and 4D printing, what that's going to mean for us when 4D printing is here. All those type of futuristic talks, I do a lot of that as well. Wow.

Speaker 1:
[18:50] You are very, very interesting. I could do just a whole show on you. Wow.

Speaker 2:
[18:54] Who are you? You're very intuitive. I hope you use it well too.

Speaker 1:
[18:58] Wow. Okay. I have more questions about you if you don't mind staying there. Now, I promise we won't get to your book. Okay. You can remote view. That's amazing. What about, and you've also worked with law enforcement as well. Are you doing that in conjunction with trying to solve crimes? Can you do that? Can you remote view unsolved crimes if you wanted to?

Speaker 2:
[19:26] I really struggled with college because I had two scholarships to go one way or the other with pre-law or communications. I really thought I wanted to go into law. I ended up working for a district attorney and working for two clerk of courts. I realized I can't because I'm such an empath. I feel everything emotionally. There I was working at the clerk of courts office pulling all the evidence for trials, in the big vault, touching all this evidence. I have psychometry where if I hold something, it's like I see the movie of what happened and I just couldn't do it. It was too much for me as an empath to see and feel that every day. I can't be of the best service in that way because it's too hard on me. I've helped some police officers, but I do not work with the police force or helping in that or with the crime things. I know it's like it should do that and I think it's amazing, but it's just I can't or I won't, I guess.

Speaker 1:
[20:31] Yeah. You mentioned that you see colors. I'm not sure if you're saying that like you have synesthesia. Do you have synesthesia?

Speaker 2:
[20:41] I've actually talked to Maureen Seberg about that, who's really famous for synesthesia and talked with her. Mine's a little different because like she'll taste the color or taste the number or the sensory things like that. I just see the aura around people. I see all the different layers. I see a physical layer, a mental layer, an emotional layer, a spiritual layer, all these layers around each person's aura. Years ago, John Edward used to have a show. He put it on the Internet where, I forgot the name of it now, but his last one he did. I was on his show for a year and a half, reading auras for people on there with his group of people that he did with that. I've just always been able to see the auras. I wrote a book about it called The Awakened Aura. The colors change in every person and the size of the aura changes as well. The different fields change. When you're emotional, that layer of your aura gets really big, and it overtakes all the rest of your field. So you know how they say, Oh my gosh, you're so upset, you're out of your mind. You really kind of are because your mental field gets really little, and your emotional field gets so big, it overtakes your work field and makes it a little wild while you're all ramped up. So when the physical layer isn't very big, you can see sometimes that like disease is, you know, kind of building and it's affecting the physical layer before it comes into the body. You can follow the spiritual layer and see if there's, I see markers in it, I call it karmic markers. They're like these little imprints there that show me things that you brought back karmically and how it's affecting you. So there's all these different layers. And so if you go to like a expo and you get an aura picture, you know how people say, Oh, look at my aura. I'm like, well, that's your aura in that minute. But your aura changes all the time. Because it's like emotions in motion. The colors are always changing. And so they move and they fluctuate and they're, they're as unique as a fingerprint. They're really amazing.

Speaker 1:
[22:59] I didn't know that.

Speaker 2:
[22:59] And I've seen those since I was little.

Speaker 1:
[23:01] Okay. You know what? I didn't, I thought your aura stayed the same all the time. You know, I didn't, I didn't know that. Let me ask you this and you may not know it, but I had one guy on my other show that study, he's a doctor, studied synesthesia. He's located in Washington, DC. But I'm wondering, and I should have asked him, but I'm going to ask you this. Do you know if people that have synesthesia, if they have ever described or said that they see colors that aren't in our color spectrum?

Speaker 2:
[23:36] Yes, they see a lot of colors, but in our color spectrum, it's just our eyes aren't attuned to them, right? Right. And you know what's so fascinating? There was a long time way back in history where we couldn't see certain colors like blue. When we were first evolving here, it took us later in history. You can Google that, look it up before we could see certain hues of colors. And it's kind of fascinating because there's a lot of history that talks about that, not just with color. But if you don't know something and you can't conceive it, it's hard to see it. And there were also stories about, I think it was Ponce de Leon, I'm trying to remember exactly. But he and those Spanish explorers, when they washed up in their ships off the shore, and the indigenous people there did not see the ships at first. And then finally, when the men got close enough in the little row boats closer to shore, they noticed the men and they thought the men were kind of just appearing out of nowhere in the water. And it's because they had never seen big ships like that. So they really couldn't see the ships at first. And it took them a while for their eyes to adjust to see and to understand. And so there's a lot about if we haven't been able to visualize something, we don't see it. And I think that's why some people can see ghosts and spirits and some can't. Because like I was born, right, where mine was kind of wide open and it stayed. So I saw them as a child and could always see them. But when, like I said, the soft spot of the head closes back in, then some people can't see anymore. And as children, you just think, you don't think about it or, you know, if you don't have that ability, that stays open. But if it stays open and you're more intuitive, you see those things that others can't see. And it's the same way, some with colors, some with just things that people can't conceive of, that are right in front of their face. And you can even try this like in your home. You can put something in plain sight that you kind of want to hide, but you can really hide things in plain sight, like they said. And if a person's not in the right mind to see it, they won't. And we've all done this, like, where's my glasses?

Speaker 1:
[25:52] I said that, where's my phone?

Speaker 2:
[25:56] It's the same kind of analogy. So yeah, they do see a lot of other colors. And we're being attuned again. We're going to start seeing and feeling more. It's happening for everyone. That's part of what I wrote about in the Awakened Aura book is there's a crystalline energy coming around our aura. That's going to make us better receivers, better with telepathy, better to send and receive messages and attune. Also, sound therapy is going to be really important, as well as light therapy with colors. You're going to see a lot more work with that with lasers and light for regeneration and healing and the same with sound and sound vibration. To move things and to heal things and even the ancient Egyptians use sound to break up blockages in the body.

Speaker 1:
[26:46] Yes, synesthetes are so amazing and so interesting. Okay, now, okay, let me ask you, have you ever sensed, I know you go into a lot of haunted places and we're going to start into your book now, but have you ever sensed something like an inhuman energy in any of the places that you've been in?

Speaker 2:
[27:10] You know, sometimes it wasn't the places I was in, it's just that I was looking specifically, like in these books, you know, I was looking for haunted things that were more ghosts, and there's such a difference between a ghost and a spirit, right? And then an entity is the third type of thing. I have encountered those things you're talking about. One, because one was looking for me evidently, or I disrupted it somehow, you know, where it was. I don't know if I came across it or it came across me, but it's not something I care to repeat anytime soon, for sure.

Speaker 1:
[27:49] So it scared you?

Speaker 2:
[27:51] Oh yeah, it had, you know, so let's talk about it energy-wise, right? When you come across a ghost, and here's my definition, a ghost is earthbound, it hasn't crossed over, it stayed stuck on the earth plane, and so it's either afraid to cross over, doesn't know it's dead, or some other reason, has unfinished business. So it never crossed fully over, it stays earthbound. And it will pull energy, drain your batteries, pull energy, make the lights blink, whatever, because it's pulling energy to try to manifest or communicate. And it can leave you a little tired because it's pulling energy, and if you're around it too much, it can make you feel a little bit drained. A spirit is someone or something that is crossed over, it's in the spiritual planes, but it's allowed to travel back and forth, it crosses back and forth through the veil. If it's what we'll call a good spirit, let's just say for want of a better word, it's full of light and it doesn't drain any energy from you. It's self-sufficient, self-charging, doesn't have any problems, won't make your lights blink or drain your batteries. It's got its own energy power and it's come back over. If it's an entity of a different type, we're not talking human, then again, depending on what it is, you feel the energy, it could feel really good, or it can feel really dark and draining. The things I talk about that are the really scary ones that, there's a feeling of dread, there's a feeling of no hope, there's a feeling of you feel weaker, you feel like it's sucking your life energy away. It just really powers you down. That's something you don't want to spend any time around if possible.

Speaker 1:
[29:44] Got you. Okay, so we're going to talk about your book. First of all, you said you're from Louisiana, but you're not from New Orleans, right?

Speaker 2:
[29:55] Yeah, that's right.

Speaker 1:
[29:56] Okay. So tell us if I wanted to go to New Orleans and I wanted to visit one of the famous cemeteries, which one would you recommend that I go to?

Speaker 2:
[30:07] Well, I made it so easy for you because the book's a guide, it's a travel guide and I found your travel guide to the other side. These books I wrote not only give you a detailed chapter by chapter where to go, but also tell you as you're in that area of the city, the best places in that area to go shop, to go eat, to go have a drink, to stay at the hotel, what places to go so you get the whole experience. Because as fun as it is to look for ghosts in New Orleans, it's just as much fun to eat there. The food's amazing. So you got to take in the whole spirit of the city. So I start you out in Chapter 1 at the best cemetery in New Orleans, even though they're all amazing. But it's St. Louis Cemetery Number 1, and it's probably the most famous. As you probably know, the cemetery there, there are tombs and they're built above ground because it's so marshy there and swampy that, as I explained in the book, when they first tried to bury them underground, and when it would rain heavier storm, the caskets and the bones would float back up and float down the streets. So they realized they had to build above ground tombs. So that's why they're called Cities of the Dead, because they look like little cities, little buildings there, incredible architecture. You know, each family almost outdoes the other, some of them building just incredible shrines in a way to their loved ones. And probably the most famous person there at St. Louis Cemetery, number one, is the tomb of Marie Laveau. And people visit there every day and leave little offerings there at her tomb. Nicholas Cage has one built there that looks like a pyramid. There's just all kinds. It's fascinating. And it will take you a while to go through there. You know, there's a lot to look at. It's pretty incredible. But even in that area not too far away, there's like 13 other cemeteries that are just as interesting. So you really can't go wrong. But that's definitely one to put on the list if that's what you're going for.

Speaker 1:
[32:16] For St. Louis, you said it's number one. Is that a guided tour or do they just let people walk through there and go wherever?

Speaker 2:
[32:24] Okay. So it is open to the public. I say and I put this in the book, go with a tour guide. The reason why is, first of all, it's kind of a maze. So you can get turned around a little lost in there too. It's not like you can look up to see your way out because they're really tall, right? So you can spend more time in there than you wanted to, you can get turned around. Second, they do such a great tour, all the guides there. They know the history, they know the tombs to take you to, so you're not wasting your time. They're going to take you to the best ones. And third, there is crime in the city there, and you have to be safe and careful. And nothing looks more like a target than a tourist walking around with a big camera. And I'm not afraid of the dead in the cemeteries, but there are sometimes humans that hang out there that will try to take advantage of someone who's on their own. So go with the tour guide, say it's safety and numbers, there's a big group, they know what they're doing, and it's really the best way to do that.

Speaker 1:
[33:31] Do they still have jazz funerals?

Speaker 2:
[33:35] Oh yeah. All the time. Yeah, with the second line and everything. So, you know, you've got the funeral and you've got the music, the band playing, and then the people with their handkerchiefs waving in the air, and their, you know, umbrellas, their parasols, and dancing, and doing the whole second line behind it. And absolutely, you know, I think I write one of the chapters in the book, I say, of all the places, you know, I'd like to be buried, New Orleans is always number one, because they do it right.

Speaker 1:
[34:09] That sounds amazing. I would love to go to New Orleans. I mean, it's on my bucket list. Everything's on my bucket list.

Speaker 2:
[34:17] Well, you should, you know, I mean, happy Mardi Gras. We're almost, it's about to happen right now. But, and maybe that's not the best time to visit, because it's really crazy during Mardi Gras. But especially anytime in the fall or winter is a really great time to go.

Speaker 1:
[34:33] Thank you for telling me that. I'll absolutely keep that in mind. What about, okay, let's talk about Marie Laveau's tomb. For those that don't know, they probably don't even know who she is. A lot of people don't know. Tell us who she was and what she's famous for.

Speaker 2:
[34:46] I love Marie Laveau. I'd love everybody to know who she is. She is the queen of voodoo, as far as New Orleans is concerned. And she was so famous in her day. So she was a hairdresser, had her own business with a woman that really just was amazing like that, you know. Back in the day to have that power, she knew everyone and everyone went to her to get their hair done because she was fantastic at it. So she knew everyone's secrets because we all talked to our hairdressers, right? Tell them everything. So she, you know, would could read for the ladies. She could tell them what was coming up. She'd advise them, she'd counsel them. And how she really got famous was one day one of the ladies that she did hair for. You know, she was also a Voodoo practitioner as well. So she was known in certain circles as the Queen of Voodoo, but others knew her as the other. But they knew she did this and did magic and had this power. So one lady went to her and said, my husband and they were very wealthy, and our son's been brought up on these trumped up charges that aren't true. Please, please can you do anything? And the lady brought her husband to talk to her and she said, okay, I will see what I can do. I believe you that he's innocent. So she began her Voodoo rituals and greeted with all these ingredients and put them in this little pouch and then began her prayers and her spirit work. And for three days she did this. And on the third day, when the trial was supposed to begin, she started early that morning and she put hot peppers in her mouth. And they were burning her mouth, but she kept them in there. And she walked all the way from her house to St. Louis Cathedral, and went there and lit a candle and prayed that this boy would be found innocent. And then she walked from St. Louis Cathedral to the courthouse, and she knew everybody in the city. They all loved her. Everyone probably owed her a favor or gratitude for something she had done for them. And so they led her into the courthouse, into where the judge sits, and she put those hot peppers to come out of her mouth, put them in the rest of the pouch, and put that pouch underneath the judge's chair. And she went and told the man, okay, I've done what I can do. So he knew the charges were so trumped up, it was his enemies, and they had gotten all these fake witnesses, and everybody would say these things. But at the end of the day, the judge didn't believe it, and the boy was set free. So the husband was so appreciative, he paid her a huge amount of money, and it was said enough to either buy the house she lives in, or to pay it off, one or the other. And so then word really spread, and everybody came to her, like needing whatever they needed for business, or health, or whatever. She practiced voodoo, and you can still go, voodoo is not like how Hollywood makes it out, so dark and sinister. It's a beautiful religion, and it deserves to be respected like all religions. And you can still go to Bayou Saint John, where Marie Laveau would go and do her practices and lead. And you can see people today doing voodoo there, especially in midsummer is a really good time to see it. They do a big festival there at Bayou Saint John in midsummer. And you can see just like it was done in her time. She went on to continue doing her voodoo spiritual practice and helping so many people in the city. She would comfort the sick. And she worked with Perry Antoine. I read about him in the book. And he was a really good priest. And they joined forces and worked together. And she would comfort those that were in jail, those that were about to be executed. She would go and feed them and comfort them. And she had found out about these two men that again, were innocent and been brought up on charges and were going to be executed. And back then they did these horrible things. They had public executions. And people came from all over, like it was a festival and brought picnic lunches.

Speaker 1:
[38:57] Yes, it was horrible. Little kids would be there looking just crazy.

Speaker 2:
[39:01] Yeah, like you just, how could we even, you just can't even imagine that. But they did and she was very against that. So she went home to do her ritual to try to, you know, stop at this and to help them in. She had said she had made them gumbo and put some things in it that at least would calm them because their fate was kind of set now. So it was a beautiful sunny day. People are out picnicking like again, like some kind of festival waiting for the execution. And all of a sudden, it said clouds came up out of nowhere and lightning and thunder and the wind was roaring and part of the gallows fell apart and the men fell down to the ground and were hurt and the executioner had to hurry and get the gallows back up to hang them, which he did. But there were trees falling and lightning and people were screaming. So they started crowding each other, just like you see it when at a concert and people, you know, the mad rush there, they were trampling each other, crushing people, all being pushed into the gallows on top of everything with the storm. And so many people were hurt. It was such a disaster that it was then declared that there would never be a public execution to get into New Orleans. And people tell Marie Laveau is creating that storm and making that happen. So those kind of things, you know, wouldn't happen like that anymore. And almost anyone that can trace some family history back to that time has a story about Marie Laveau and what she did. And she's known as the Queen of Voodoo. And I think she's really the Queen of New Orleans for what she did for the people, just so loving and caring. And her daughter went on to continue her legacy, as did other women after her. And I'm sure, you know, I even write in the book, like there's her tomb you can go visit. And people go there and ask her for favors, you know. But I've heard people have better luck if they just go to St. Louis Cathedral and light a candle there and say her name and ask her for it there, because she did so much work in that way as well, that you can almost appeal to her anywhere in New Orleans and ask her for help. And they say, you know, she won't do what she can't.

Speaker 1:
[41:19] She'll do what she can't. And have anybody, has anybody ever said that they've seen her haunt the area, even the home that she lived in?

Speaker 2:
[41:29] The closest I've heard is at her home, which I think is on St. Ann Street where her cottage was. I don't know if the exact cottage still stays or not, but I've heard a few stories of like maybe seeing a glimps of her, but it's just a glimpse. It's really fast. And you know, I don't think she's haunting it. She's someone who was such a beautiful spiritual person that, you know, she's not a ghost like staying here and haunting. She's over there in the spirit realms and maybe she'll choose to come back. But then that gets us into that whole conversation of, you know, you keep coming back as a soul. And so how long do you keep coming back in one incarnation of something versus another usually move on? So I think she's moved on well from that and is whatever her new incarnation many, many times over as Marie Laveau is now. She's walking amongst us doing, you know, good things somewhere right now.

Speaker 1:
[42:28] I know that when people go to New Orleans, they flock to her burial site to see that. You see a ton of pictures of that online. I want to go ahead and also ask you, like say we wanted to eat some good food at a reportedly very haunted restaurant. Who would you recommend or what would you recommend?

Speaker 2:
[42:51] Well, okay. Do you want friendly or do you want scary?

Speaker 1:
[42:54] Let's get scary. We want scary.

Speaker 2:
[42:57] Oh, my goodness. I'm most scared. Where would I go? You have to eat there too, right? Okay. What do you think about that? Because the scariest ones are like the L'Oreal House, but that's private now.

Speaker 1:
[43:10] Who owns that house? So you're saying that's a private residence now?

Speaker 2:
[43:13] Yeah. Nicholas Cage actually bought it for a while. Then he had to sell it and then another company bought it, and they turned it into condos, I think, now. That's the last I heard. So a lot of the places like that, the scariest ones, funny enough, are private now, but that's the scariest. The stories you heard about that with Madame Wall-Laurie.

Speaker 1:
[43:39] No, no, no.

Speaker 2:
[43:39] I haven't heard anything.

Speaker 1:
[43:40] Tell us about it.

Speaker 2:
[43:41] What American Horror Story covered that. They did a whole thing on that with her. I think Kathy Bates played her in that show. That was really gruesome.

Speaker 1:
[43:54] Wait, wait, wait. Hold on a minute. What happened in that? I missed that. I don't know anything about that.

Speaker 2:
[44:00] Oh my gosh. Okay. You have to look that up. That's really scary. So her husband was a surgeon and gosh, he kept people enslaved in the house and did all kinds of macabre experiments on them and surgeries, where he would move their body parts around, turn them into grotesque crab people, and where everything was misshapen in their bodies, and chained them in there. And a lot of people would talk about these things. And she had a lot of enemies. She had married this man later in life. I think she was a widow before. And she had some enemies that were trying to get a hold of her money, is what it was, because she was a woman of power. And influence in the city. And she remarried this guy, the surgeon. And he turned out to just be awful. So she actually petitioned for a divorce. And I don't think it was granted to her. She tried to say that cruel and unusual things were being done to her. The house caught fire. And they're not sure. They think it was someone else in the home that started the fire. And people were rushing in. And they could hear the screaming of these people that were chained inside and trying to save them. And he took off. She stayed there trying to fight the fire. So she was really, for a long, long time, when all that was found, what was done to those people, they blamed her and said she was this like horrible, evil thing that did this. And later, as more research has come out, it's shown that really it was that the guy she married, and that they tried to trump her up on charges because her brother-in-law was trying to get the money that she had inherited from her first husband. And so he was just trying to trump her up on charges so that he could take everything away from her and get it for himself. But forever, she was considered to be this evil woman that was torturing these people and doing these things. That place is so haunted because there were people suffering in there for years and years. And before I was a private resident, it used to be a furniture store for a while, not too long ago. And the guy would complain because every morning when he came into the store, there'd be ectoplasm all over the furniture and everything, so thick it was ruining the furniture. And he would try to stay up at night to figure out, he thought someone was playing a prank on him. And he would try to stay up all night and always end up falling asleep. And when he woke up, he and everything would be covered in ectoplasm. There are so many horrible stories about that place.

Speaker 1:
[46:54] Ectoplasm is something, that's a real thing.

Speaker 2:
[46:57] Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[47:01] What else would happen? Did he see anybody? Did he hear screams or whatever?

Speaker 2:
[47:05] He would hear people, yeah, people hear screams even. They say walking by, if you take any of the ghost tours, they're going to take you by the house. I listed in my book, I think it's like, I think it's chapter 7 in my book. I tell you, I went there, I tried to check out, but at the time it was under construction, so I couldn't get in to go through it all. But yeah, there's some bad place.

Speaker 1:
[47:31] That is insanity. That's insanity what happened there. That's crazy.

Speaker 2:
[47:37] Yeah. Unfortunately, it's tortured spirits. They're in so much pain and agony that that's what you're hearing and seeing there. Now, but let me tell you a fun place to go. The Court of Two Sisters. It's one of my favorite places in the French Quarter. Two Sisters own this place. They were known as the finest seamstresses in all of New Orleans. Everybody went there to have their stuff, their dresses and everything done by these two women. They were so well-known and respected. Queen Isabella of Spain sent them a thank you gift. She sent them these beautiful iron gates that they put at the entrance to their home there. Now, it's a restaurant called Court of Two Sisters named after them. The gates are enchanted. These two sisters put a magical enchantment on the gates that if you touch them and make a wish, that something will come true for you. So they still have the original gates given from Queen Isabella of Spain all those hundreds of years ago hanging there. And so as you go into the restaurant to eat, you can touch the gates and make a wish and you can feel the energy. They're so old. And then you walk through the courtyard and the trees are growing outside where they've grown a canopy and made just all connected. The trees are connected in this outdoor canopy of live trees with a water fountain going and music and they have jazz playing and you eat out there. And you can feel not just the spirits of the sisters, but what we call elementals like fairies, other things like that. You can feel the energy of the elementals in this garden. New Orleans, everywhere is so magic because you've got Lake Pontchartrain on one side, the Mississippi River on the other side, the Gulf of Mexico. It's a crescent city that's got all these bodies of water and the shape of the crescent in the city. So it is one of the most magical places in the world because of the way the natural elements and the elementals are there supporting it. You really can't help but feel inspired, more creative, more passionate, whatever it is, the magic is going to come out in you. I love to write, but when I go to New Orleans, I can't stop writing. It just pours out of me. It's so creative. That's why there are people dancing in the streets and musicians and artists painting and playing in the streets. It just bursts it out of you. It's an amazing, magical place. And so, you can go anywhere and see a ghost. I go in a store and I'm like, oh, they have a ghost. You know, it's like, and I'll go to any store. I was at a shop and I'm like, do you know they have a ghost? They're like, oh yeah, we have some stuff. We had some things moving around the other night. This is happening. I'm like, yep, he's right over there, you know, everywhere.

Speaker 1:
[50:44] Let me ask you this because I know that when the hurricane came, I mean, I heard this on the news, you know, the news never picks up anything paranormal, but people were reporting, the ones that were tasked to come down to the city and rebuild the city, that they were having a lot of paranormal experiences and was scaring the hell out of them. Because that, you know, I guess, that stirred up a lot of energy in the city, understandably. Did you hear things like that after Hurricane Katrina hit the area?

Speaker 2:
[51:20] Yeah, I did. And, you know, ghosts don't like to be disturbed. They don't like it when you renovate their house. So if you start tearing up their city, they're really not happy. And there's stories of, you know, some cemeteries that didn't get moved, and there's stories about ghosts under the Superdome. There were some people buried there, where the New Orleans Saints play football, right? So do you know they have voodoo practitioners and priests and nuns? And if you ever go to a New Orleans game there, they bring in all of those religious ones, and they have them pray and do things like sacred rites before every game to appease the spirits.

Speaker 1:
[52:02] You gotta be kidding me. In the locker room or out in public somewhere or what?

Speaker 2:
[52:06] Out in public.

Speaker 1:
[52:07] Wow.

Speaker 2:
[52:08] In the Superdome.

Speaker 1:
[52:09] I didn't know that. Okay, that's amazing. Okay, let me ask you this. One other place I want to ask you about. Well, wait a minute, two other places. One of them is Congo Square. You wrote about that in your book. What is the haunted archway?

Speaker 2:
[52:25] Well, there's, yeah, there's an archway that is a Congo Square was where at the time, gosh, going back in history now, way back, but when there were slaves in New Orleans at that time, Congo Square was where they would gather. And then after they became free, they still gathered there. And it became a marketplace, excuse me, where they could sell items. You know, make money and build, start to build little businesses and things. But it was also where they could celebrate, play music, dance, do, you know, whatever they wanted to do. And so there's such a strong energy there that, of all of that pent up energy and emotion of being oppressed, of being wronged, of being, you know, mistreated. And also of the longing, the desire for things. And then when that finally happened, all that energy bursting forth. So when you have so much energy like that, congregated in one place, it kind of opens up and creates, how would I say, like kind of a form of energy that holds there. So you feel it when you go through the archway there. You kind of can feel the transition. And if you really pay attention, it's almost like a portal. And you can, you can, how do I say, you can go through when you walk through, because an archway is like a doorway. And doorways are portals. And you're taught this in magic and even in fairy tales. Like when you walk through a doorway, be careful because that's where the elementals are. That's where you can go through a portal. And an archway does the same thing. So some people report when they go through the archway, that things can change and all of a sudden they're back in time. And they're seeing what it was like back in that time. They're hearing the music, smelling the food, seeing the dancers, the whole thing. So it can move you. It's almost like a time portal.

Speaker 1:
[54:32] Yeah, time slip. That's amazing. Yeah, that one's on my list, too. I want to visit that area. What about the last one I want to ask you about is the Keys House. And I don't know how to pronounce the first part of that.

Speaker 2:
[54:47] The Keys House.

Speaker 1:
[54:48] Is that Bogart, maybe something? I know it's not Bogart, but it's something Keys House. Gunshots and ghosts, it's like Chapter 18.

Speaker 2:
[54:57] Oh, Beauregard. Yeah, Beauregard. Keys House. That's funny. What attracted you to do that one out, Dad?

Speaker 1:
[55:05] I don't know. I was just going through it and it's talking about Civil War stuff and gunshots and I don't know.

Speaker 2:
[55:12] Yeah. I thought everybody always asked me about the Casket Girls. I thought you were going to go there. So I'm like, oh really?

Speaker 1:
[55:17] What's the Casket Girl? Okay. We'll talk about that in just a second.

Speaker 2:
[55:20] Go ahead. Oh yeah. Because those are the vampires. That's where the original vampires came from. So there's a lot about the Casket Girls being brought up about that. So yeah, that's more of a history like that time, the Beauregard. He's housed at another French Quarter landmark. So it was named after a general. I think it's like Toussaint. He has a really long name, Beer Gustave, Toussaint Beauregard. After the Civil War, he returned to New Orleans and he lived there, where he started working for the railroad. And then he sold the home to an Italian guy from Sicily. And it's said that he was a big socializer, but that he also was maybe doing some things under the table, like moving liquor around and stuff like that. And so one day they heard gunshots coming from the home, and they went and they found people that had been shot there and investigated. And the Italian family said that it had been ended by the mafia, that there was some type of fees that were being forced on them, and that they weren't willing to pay it. And so their family had paid a price. And so there was a thing that was said the mafia would do at that time, which was called the Black Hand. And so how they would send you a threatening letter, it would just be a letter and it had like a handprint on it in black. And if you got that letter, you had to pay them back, or else you were going to, you know, someone was going to die. And so they were saying they had received one of those letters. And so the threats happened back and forth. And, you know, so there was that energy there, people dying. But then it went back and forth, and other people bought it. One time, one of the owners bought it. He wanted to turn it into a macaroni factory. But the neighbors, I think, fought against it, because it was a historical home, and they wanted to keep it. So then it was sold to the Keyes family, and who was tied to a senator. And the woman who owned it, Francis, she was a columnist. I think she worked for, like, good housekeeping, a lot of different books and things like that. And, you know, she kind of kept it as is, protecting it. And there always have been stories, and she would even share stories that it was very haunted. People would see a cat, a dog, a little girl. And then they would also see kind of a replay at night, like a battle, where there was, you would hear a cannon fire, you would see soldiers there. So going back to that first Beauregard, they said sometimes he would act that out, you know, and fire the cannon. But people have said they've seen even more, like soldiers there, falling like they're on the battlefield, and see the smoke from the cannons, and hear that. So they're not really sure why, because the only thing they could attach it to is General Beauregard. He had a battle, the Battle of Shiloh, and it was really a bad one, right? A lot of men died under him, and like thousands. It was, he never really, they said he never really recovered from it, because I think like over 3,000 men died in another 2,000, really injured. And so the theory a lot of researchers have is that because he wrote about this, he talked about it, he had probably what we'd call PTSD now, right? Where he went over it every night, he'd wake up from it, emotionally upset, that he created so much energy there, and with his obsession about it, that he actually made an imprint of it there on the property, where it acts out over and over and over. And we talk about this in the psychic world as being a thought form that, you know, just like the law of attraction that says, if you give energy to something long enough, it can manifest it. And people have learned to do that now, right? So, oh, get a vision board, do this, or think about this manifestant. But if you have something that you focus on over and over, that has a lot of emotionally charged energy, you can create a thought form that kind of will attach. And then the theory continues saying that because, you know, over 3,000 men died in that battle with him, that a lot of those men might have actually attached themselves to him as ghosts, and kept around him, which made him even more grief-struck and even more in the PTSD. And if they may have followed him to that house and then stayed there as his thought forms, created that battlefield where they repeated over and over. And if you do that enough, it attaches to physical surroundings and kind of becomes an energy imprint there. So, some people say they hear that, the battle. Others hear men screaming in Italian and hear the guns. Like I said, some see the pets. There's a little girl that a lot of people see that kind of comes from underneath there. There's just a lot of things. And it's a more interesting one because, yes, there were those killings there, but there's so many other things that happen that no one can really identify exactly why that house has so much ghostly energy like that. It's one of those mysteries no one's really figured out yet.

Speaker 1:
[61:07] It sounds like a great place to visit. Do you go there every time? Is that, do you have certain ones that you actually like to hit every time you come to the city?

Speaker 2:
[61:16] I do, yeah. You know, I always go to the Quarter of Two Sisters. I love that. I go to a lot of the restaurants that are fun, like Antoine's and Arnaud's, that I always go to. The Hotel Monte Leon is really fun, the spirits there are fun, and they have a great bar with a carousel that goes around. I like to go to Our Lady of Guadalupe Church because St. Expedite is there and it's real fun with that energy. Pat O'Brien's, I ran into a really fun ghost there in the bathroom of all places, but there's just a lot of-

Speaker 1:
[61:53] Really? Wait, wait, wait, you cannot glaze over that one, you gotta tell us about it.

Speaker 2:
[61:58] Oh, well, let's see, I have gone there many times, but the time I ran into the ghost, I'm a big New Orleans Saint fan, and I was in the bar there at Pat O'Brien's hanging out, and we were playing, I forgot who it was, I want to say the Giants, but I'm not really sure who it was, but someone like that. So I was really getting into it, they were talking smack and saying how they were going to win, blah, blah, blah. I was like, oh no, you're not, and I'm talking back and they're like, well, look at this little girlie, she knows football, she's spouting all this, right? So they just keep messing with me, and I'm getting all hyped up, you know, as St. Sans too, we're like talking. So I grabbed the Tabasco sauce on the table and some other things there and I mixed it all up, and I'm like, I just made a Grigri bag, like I'm doing Voodoo on them, and I'm like, you're in trouble now because they're going down, and so is your team, and you might have could have won, but not now because I put my mojo on the game, and I'm shaking this Tabasco, and they're looking at me and they're like, oh my gosh, right, this woman in there. They're like, oh my gosh, don't put the voodoo on us, and I'm like, oh, it's too late. And so then I go off to the ladies room, and because they were just obnoxious, they really, they were not just in fun. And so I came, I went to the bathroom, and I come out of the bathroom, and I noticed there's someone standing at the sink next to me, and I'm just like, can you play with those men were saying, you know? And I was like, you know, they'll eat their words later tonight, they're ridiculous. And then I hear a voice saying, yes ma'am, they will indeed. And that's when I looked up because it was a man's voice. I'm in the woman's bathroom. And it was this elderly man standing next to me, and he had on, you know, black pants and a white shirt. And he had a little towel in his hand, and he kind of held the towel like up to me, you know, as I was washing my hands. So I was shocked because like first, first I saw him and it just looked like a man. Like, what's he doing in the bathroom? And so then I realized, okay, this is a ghost, because at first he looks informed, and they can't hold that for very long. And they kind of get, you know, you kind of see through them. And so I got the feeling like he was a musician and maybe had played at Pat O'Brien's, you know, before. And that he was just haunting Pat O'Brien's because he liked it there. And he kind of looked, he had a vest on too. He looked like someone that would have maybe been playing jazz there. And it was real quick. He was just friendly, you know? And he was just like, yes ma'am, they will indeed, you know, like saying, yeah, agreeing with me and stuff. And I can just imagine like he has seen like so much there going on at Pat O'Brien's, which is just a great courtyard if he's ever, you know, outside there. They have these big fountains with water, but it also has flames shooting through them. It's so cool at night.

Speaker 1:
[64:53] Did that entity just, I mean, did that ghost just disappear or what happened?

Speaker 2:
[64:58] Yeah, that was all. He was just like, tried to hand me a towel. It wasn't really a towel, you know, because I wouldn't put my hand, that's when I realized he was a ghost. But he had a tally and he was there in the bathroom. And he was just sweet. And I just, I, you know, I think he just hangs out there. And I think he's a lucky sign when you see him. So I always tell people like, if you go in the bathroom there, kind of, you know, if you see him, it's good luck, because that's, you know, how he was. And we won that game. So maybe it was my voodoo, maybe it was that ghost. I don't know. But, you know, we won it and that's what matters.

Speaker 1:
[65:35] Awesome. Okay, so the last one I want to ask you about are the vampires.

Speaker 2:
[65:39] Okay. What do you think about vampires?

Speaker 1:
[65:41] I love vampires. Love all vampire movies. Yeah. Oh, yeah.

Speaker 2:
[65:45] Okay. Well, I think I saw one for real.

Speaker 1:
[65:49] Really?

Speaker 2:
[65:50] So...

Speaker 1:
[65:51] Oh, wow.

Speaker 2:
[65:53] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[65:53] Tell us about it.

Speaker 2:
[65:55] Well, two stories here. So one, I was taking one of those carriage rides you can take in New Orleans. And we were going down this really dark street. I had one to go at night. And I asked the driver to take me some places they don't normally take you. I wanted to go off route. So I said, look, there's some other things I want to see. I heard there's some more haunted areas. I want you to take me at night so I can try to pick up on it. So we're going and all of a sudden we're down the street and I feel this like terrible energy. It's like draining everything out of me. And I said to the driver, you know, what's going on? And I don't really think it's a horse. I think they're mules that they use. The mule is getting really skittish and trying to turn around and the driver is trying to force them down the street. So I look past the driver and I see this form like of a man at the end of the street. And the mule is really scared of him, doesn't want to go down there. And the guy is almost compelled. He's like, yawn, yawn, go on, go on. And so I'm like, hey, let's just turn around. I don't think we should go down there. But the guy, it's like he's not listening to me. It's like he's not even able to hear me. And he keeps trying to push the carriage down there. And as we get a little closer, I can just feel the energy coming off of this thing. And I realize it's not human. And it's draining my energy. And it's also trying to compel, like a compulsion, which is like, you know, where you stop listening to your thoughts. And it's, you're almost following this compulsion to like, come closer, come closer, come here. And it was doing that. So I touched the driver trying to shake his arm and say, turn around. And I realized he's kind of like in a hypnotic state. And he's just, he's just, I think, like, compelled really to keep going closer to this man standing in the middle of the street, standing there just like super still, not moving. And the mule's getting more and more scared and trying to turn around. And I just shake the guy. And I'm just like, hey, you know, and finally snaps out of it. And I'm like, turn around, let's go the other way. And so he did. He turned around. And as I turned back, I could see that thing, you know, getting a little closer. And I was just like, I put up everything I was taught, all my shields of white light and things. I blocked any energy being directed to us, put us in a bubble of light, and then just kind of shot it that way, like back off, you know, not your, not your snack tonight. Kind of, with the want of a better word to put it. I know it sounds crazy. And then later, I was friends with Brad Steiger. I don't know if you know, he's written like 170 books on the paranormal and has done, you know, dedicated his life to, you know, all that type of research and work. And I worked with a lot of researchers in all these fields. So I was talking to Brad Steiger and telling him, here's what happened, this is what it felt like. What do you know from your experiences? And he was the one that really confirmed that it sounds, because there were, there's reports of a certain vampire in New Orleans. And I write about it in the book there about this whole experience. And the one who appears like that, and that's pretty much is what people have described. I didn't know about it before. I just experienced it. But the energy really is a draining, like the life force is being sucked out of you. And a compulsion to come closer to him where you're almost not thinking anymore. It's really scary. And so that's probably the scariest thing I've ever, because it's like, you know, in Harry Potter when they talk about the Dementors, and it just felt like that. It was draining all the life force out of you. It was horrible.

Speaker 1:
[69:39] And I'm interested to know, like, was this like a plain looking guy? Was he dressed weird? What does his skin look like? I mean, stuff like that, you know?

Speaker 2:
[69:48] So, it was, you know, it was at nine. I'm going, so you've just got the little streetlights, and it's not in that part of the French Quarter and all that. It's not like, you know, big streetlights. They're smaller. And he was kind of standing in the dark, and he had, you know, dark clothes on. So I can't tell you that I, you know, and thankfully did not get close, like, to see his eyes, you know, or anything like that.

Speaker 1:
[70:15] But he never moved from the middle of the street, just standing there.

Speaker 2:
[70:18] With his legs apart and, like, he was just, like, pulling in the energy, you know, just, and it just gave you the most fearful thing. Just, it was horrible.

Speaker 1:
[70:32] What about, okay, so the last one I want to talk about, I know we're running over a little bit.

Speaker 2:
[70:36] Casket Curls?

Speaker 1:
[70:37] Yes, yes. Tell me about that.

Speaker 2:
[70:39] So, there's a famous convent in New Orleans called the Ursuline Convent, and it's one of the oldest. It was back before the nuns were there. They left France way back when, you know, Louisiana changed hands from the French to the Spanish before it became part of the US. And so, these nuns were sent there when Louisiana was owned, I think, by the Spanish, to come and do work and then the French took back control. But the nuns, you know, always tried to keep Earth's line going. And so, the sisters worked over and over. And in the book, I'll skip over that for now, but all these miracles happened there where the nuns would pray for safety when everything else was being messed up with, you know, New Orleans and going between governments and all that, that always somehow stayed. And even like during times, General Jackson went now like for help. And it was said, you know, the prayers they did helped him, you know, with things. So consider a very sacred place. But when France took over again, they were trying to populate New Orleans. And first they just took like really impoverished women from the streets and some from the prisons. And they shipped them to New Orleans to kind of entice men to settle there, like, oh, you can have this woman. And then as New Orleans started to grow, they had to send the nicer girls, as they would call it. And they would send these girls from France, they would come from like a finishing school, and they had a trunk with them that would have their clothes, their dowry. And the French government provided this. They would go to their families and say, we want to send your girls, we're going to help them find husbands, and we're giving them this little trunk full of clothes and nice things. And the trunks were in the form of a casket, but like a little bit of a smaller size casket. So they started calling these girls casket girls, because that's what their trunks look like. So they would stay at our Slane convent, and the nuns would help them find a good, respectable husband, right? And get them married off. And that's how they were trying to settle New Orleans to get people to start moving and setting up shop and homes in the city. But as the story goes, one evening, these women arrived in New Orleans by ship. They were the latest casket girls. But instead of arriving during the day, they arrived at night. And they had caskets, but they weren't the small ones. They were like a full, like coffin-sized casket. And they were locked tight. And when the girls got to the convent, they said, no, ours aren't to be opened. They have to go upstairs, and we can never open them until the day we're married and we leave. And so they were put upstairs and on the third floor. So the legend says that one of the nuns got really curious and went up to the third floor and wanted to open one of the caskets to see why they had to be locked. And when she, when she found it, it was open and it was empty. And so she went and looked at the others and they were empty as well. And she went to talk to the other nuns. And the nuns, in whatever way they decided, believed that these were vampires in the caskets. They saw some dirt in there and some other things. And because they were empty, they were convinced that this is how the casket girls brought over vampires from Europe. So the nuns decided to do a blessing to protect the convent. They took more than 8,000 screws and they had them blessed and put in holy water. And then, they screwed all the caskets down. And then, they had those 8,000 screws put in every single window in the convent. And so that nothing could get through. It was blessed with salt and holy water. And so they thought, okay, the vampires that were out of their caskets at this time, they wouldn't be able to come back in the convent. They'd have to go somewhere. And so, once the screws were all put in place, the nuns reported the girls came downstairs and they were upset. They wouldn't go to sleep. They were screaming, saying, no, no, no, you can't do this. And they heard howling outside. And everything in the convent was shaking. And then when the nuns went back upstairs, all of the windows were open. And the sisters tried to shut the windows again and put the screws back in. But the windows kept blowing open. And they would keep trying, you know, over and over. But the vampires would still come in and out, it was said. And so the legend says, vampires, these were the first ones that came over in Europe. And that these girls and their families cared for these aristocratic type vampires for centuries. And they provided for them, they snuck them over that way. And then they slipped out and left Ursuline Convent and went to live in other places in the city. And this is how the first vampire settled in the city.

Speaker 1:
[75:38] So, is that convent still there?

Speaker 2:
[75:42] Yeah, you could go look and everything. And, you know, it's such an interesting name, the way it was named under Ursuline. Because, you know, Ursuline is a really old history. And St. Ursula is what they're calling it. But she was the daughter of a king in Europe of this century. King, and she was supposed to be married off. And she didn't want to be, she didn't want to be married off. And so she asked for all these, her father, if there's any way she could get out of it. And she went on a pilgrimage and taking a lot of girls with her, trying to, you know, appeal not to get married. And so she's always, it's supposed to be like a place to always protect and where women could make their voids to safety like that. And it was said these women maybe at one time had been protected by vampires. And so they owed them a debt in that way throughout history. And so they agreed to bring them over in that way and let them escape into New Orleans and where they've been ever since. So you don't, you know, you can go and see. You know, they say, of course, the vampires don't live there any longer, but there have been people that say they've felt like they've seen one or two walk the grounds or come around there, you know, maybe just checking it out. But it's got an amazing history. It's a really, really interesting place to visit.

Speaker 1:
[77:07] That is great. And I've really enjoyed this conversation with you, Kayla. I want you to take a moment to tell my listeners where they can find out more information about all your other books and how they can keep up with any other projects you're working on.

Speaker 2:
[77:19] Oh, thank you. My website is exploreyourspirit.com. And I've got my six books on there with information. You can find them all on Amazon and Barnes & Noble, wherever you shop. And I've got online courses you can take there, a blog where I write about all these things. You can go read more about Spirits of New Orleans on there too, including how I was invited to go to the Anne Rice Vampire Ball and the Witches Ball when I was on book tour and spoke at a conference that Anne Rice was the only one that was a nonfiction author that was asked to go because she liked my book about New Orleans as a guide. That was a great time going to the vampire balls that were thrown there that she did.

Speaker 1:
[78:04] Yeah, that sounds amazing.

Speaker 2:
[78:05] And the Witches Ball, that's pretty amazing they do there too. So just so many amazing things in the city there.

Speaker 1:
[78:12] All right. Very good. Kayla, many blessings to you and I really appreciate your time.

Speaker 2:
[78:17] Thank you. Happy Mardi Gras.

Speaker 1:
[78:22] Thank you for listening. I invite you to follow my other podcast, Mysterious Radio. Please share this show with others that are interested in the paranormal. I want to give a special thanks to our co-creator and executive producer, Kim Kyle, who brought this show to you today. And working hard behind the scenes, our team of four, I want to thank them as well. I am your host KTown and you're listening to Paranormal Fears.