Oddity Shop
This podcast examines the oddities of the world...Cryptids to Conspiracies, Cults to Curiosities, Myths to Mysteries, and so much more! Stop by the shop, where the bizarre is always on sale... Each week your curators, Kara Perakovic and Zach Palmer will be opening the shop and sharing stories with you.
Oddity Shop
Spectrophilia: Till Death Do Us... Wait, That Won't Work
Welcome To The Oddity Shop, Where The Bizarre is Always on Sale. This week, your Curator Zach is talking all about Love from Beyond the Grave!
Have you ever felt a presence in your bedroom late at night? A cold touch when no one was there? For most, these moments spark fear – but for some, they spark romance.
Spectrophilia – sexual or romantic attraction to ghosts – exists in a fascinating limbo between psychological curiosity and paranormal experience. Our deep dive takes you through centuries of ghost marriages across cultures.
Then we explore modern cases that will leave you questioning everything you thought you knew about relationships. Meet Amanda, a psychic medium who married a 300-year-old Haitian pirate ghost named Jack in international waters. Or Brocarde, whose romance with Victorian soldier Eduardo ended when he began haunting her with the sounds of screaming babies. These aren't fictional tales – these are real people who've appeared in mainstream media documenting their spiritual marriages and subsequent divorces.
Have you ever experienced unexplained romantic encounters? Send us your paranormal relationship stories – we promise not to ghost you.
References:
- https://www.them.us/story/kesha-ghost-sex-encounter-supernatural
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spectrophilia
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paraphilia
- https://people.com/human-interest/woman-who-married-300-year-old-pirate-ghost-announces-marriage-is-over/
- https://nypost.com/2022/12/11/singer-who-married-a-ghost-claims-he-ruined-their-honeymoon/
- https://www.theworldofchinese.com/2015/09/dead-when-wed-ghost-marriages-in-china/
- https://myend.com/country/south-sudan/
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuer_peop
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Each Week at the Oddity Shop, Your Curators Kara and Zach will bring you Creepy, Strange, Weird Bizarre Stories from around the globe!
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I want to dance with the mothman at the ID shop, baked in the moonlight at the ID shop. Creep through the graveyard to the ID shop. The door's always open at the ID shop. Welcome back to the Oddity Shop podcast, the podcast where we tell you creepy, odd words, strange stories from around the globe. You said word, word.
Speaker 2:Strange. You know what? Let's try that again. No, I like it.
Speaker 1:Keep it all in.
Speaker 2:It's fun. You know what? If you're new here, welcome to the shit show. If you're not new here, hey girl, you're not surprised by any of this.
Speaker 1:Oh.
Speaker 2:God, all right. Who are you?
Speaker 1:Zachary.
Speaker 2:Oh, and I'm Cara today. Yeah, is it the opposite day? Sure, the coolest curators you know. Okay, so I finally broke down and I did it and I have purchased gender affirming care for myself.
Speaker 1:Oh, I know, and as of this week, I am officially on minoxidil for my thinning hair.
Speaker 2:Isn't that what you didn't want to take? Yes, it is Okay, but I have tried three different natural products for over a year at this point and it's only getting worse. So I am going to give the actual medication a try.
Speaker 1:Okay, Give me back my. What is it called?
Speaker 2:Grow.
Speaker 1:No, it's not called that.
Speaker 2:It's literally called the GRO.
Speaker 1:The one I gave you. Yeah, no, it's not. It's no, it's not. It's company name starts with a v, but yeah, yeah, but yeah, the product is called grow. No, I know, but I meant the product name because everybody knows it.
Speaker 2:Give it back to me, okay come get it, unless you're gonna use it. I don't want to put like too many different products in there, so I still have my other natural stuff that I'm still using. But I got like the derma roller and everything just be careful with that catch me in a year. I'm gonna be full head again.
Speaker 1:I know, but just be careful with derma rollers. Are you talking about? What does it look like?
Speaker 2:It's the one with like all the little pins on it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's very, very dangerous. Be very careful, make sure you're cleaning it.
Speaker 2:It gets soaked in alcohol. Watch a lot of videos, okay.
Speaker 1:I know, but that is just like derma planing and everything is so bad for you Like just thanks mom because all you need is an infection on your head and then you lose.
Speaker 2:There you are there's not much left to lose up there. Oh, honestly, a scab might look better at this point.
Speaker 1:You are such a dork um, okay, so that's good for you. I'm glad, because otherwise we could just go to turkey though yeah, it's a little, so I did try.
Speaker 2:just I didn't get the full prescription because honestly I didn't want the other drug that they put in it, the finasteride or whatever because that has some serious side effects. So I got the over the counter light version. I'm going to try it for a little while. If it doesn't work, damn it. We're saving up for that Turkey vacation. I don't know these people, but a couple YouTubers that I watch. They have podcasts but they talk about a lot that both went and it's like you would never know. It looks great. So it looks great after a couple months. I love that. I know we've talked about on here, but I just love that picture of everyone coming back on the flight from Turkey to US and they all have just like super swollen heads from the pressure changes Ridiculous.
Speaker 2:Oh my God, it'll be me one day.
Speaker 1:Okay, I had something to tell you or talk about, but now I'm like wait the hair. I just didn't know that's what we were going to be talking about Turkey, what the fuck was I talking about? Oh, this is not what I was going to say, but this is. We have some very intuitive listeners, because when we were dropping hints for Lauren's episode, people guessed it without even the hint.
Speaker 2:I know they did good. Also appreciate the engagement on that one.
Speaker 1:That was wild. And as of recording this, the episode hasn't even come out yet and I still have one more day of hints, but people already guessed it. They guessed it on the day that I said I'm going to be giving you guys hints starting tomorrow. They already guessed it that day, but I didn't tell anybody. They're correct.
Speaker 2:I'm like like I don't know. I did the same thing on the tiktok. I saw that so I thought that was so fun. On her episode, though, we still need to write in. So questions for lauren, or if you want her to read your story on a future episode, send them to us she'd come back, so we gotta give her some stuff to come back.
Speaker 1:Uh, what else was I gonna say?
Speaker 2:I think that might have been it um, oh, did I tell you about, with all the yard work that I was doing, that random hole in my front yard that I've been trying to figure out what it was?
Speaker 1:no, is it a mole or rabbit?
Speaker 2:it's a chipmunk oh little chipper I've been sitting on the front porch when I get done with my walks just to like see if I could see it right, and I kind of like sit behind the bush and this little little I almost called him a bad name, but it is really annoying because he's tunneling under my, yeah, but he came like running out of nowhere and went to like jump in the hole but then realized I'm three feet away from it and we're just staring at each other. This dude's cheeks, oh is there, we're so puffed out like he.
Speaker 2:I don't know how he wasn't bursting or didn't drop any of that food when he saw me and we just had this stare down.
Speaker 1:You guys could become friends.
Speaker 2:Except okay. So the same thing happened in my parents' house, and then their cement started settling because the chipmunks were getting under there. So I need to figure out a solution. I want to try, though, to find, like, a humane solution.
Speaker 1:They do have like repellent that's not harmful, like I did that around the perimeter for like the bunnies because they were really tearing up my yard until I was going to kill them all. So they do have where you're not going to kill them, so you could do I don't want him to die.
Speaker 2:No, no, no, I don't want him. Yeah, I have had enough problems with critters in this damn house. Yeah, there's squirrels in my walls if you know, you know, um, yeah, that she performed that recently because phineas and ferb is now back oh, is that? I thought it was just like at one of her shows, nope so they are.
Speaker 1:They rebooted it, so it is back, which is actually exciting because I loved that cartoon and they didn't actually never really watched it.
Speaker 2:I've watched it like once or twice with uh like younger kids, oh yeah it's funny.
Speaker 1:I well, I was a nanny so we she was like her favorite show. But um, yeah, they rebooted it. It's all the same voice actors, everybody came back, so it's like authentic and they're not like changing anything, which is cool what was the cartoon?
Speaker 2:that was like past, when we were kids, but probably like the time you would have been babysitting or nannying. That was like two birds, like a blue jay and a red bird, and they like worked at a summer camp and like their manager was a gumball machine. What it was like. I remember watching it with younger kids and there were so many jokes there that I'm like I, because I don't think that was a kid's cartoon.
Speaker 1:I think it was probably like adult swim or something regular show that's probably like an adult swim no, it was I've never watched it hold on.
Speaker 2:It's a regular show for kids. Oh, top thing it says no, it was not considered appropriate for young children, but it was on like it wasn't.
Speaker 1:Adult swim is just on like midday tv isn't that wild that this just popped into my brain. And then obviously we have to get going. But adult swim what a fucking concept. Because why was it on cartoon right, cartoon network? Yeah, but it was just like fucking concept. Because why was it on cartoon network? Right, cartoon network? Yeah, but it was just like at 10 o'clock it switched over like we weren't gonna watch it oh yeah, no, I watched every.
Speaker 2:Those were that's where all the good shit was a bad call.
Speaker 1:Well, probably why our generation is so screwed up just because it said adults, I know, yeah, I know, okay, well with that uplifting note about us all being screwed up, I got a really screwed up episode for you.
Speaker 1:Okay, this is screwed up. Sorry, it just came to my brain. I was going to tell you about it. When I was at the wedding, Dustin was there and his wife, Manda, just casually at dinner we were talking about everyone at the table was talking about the podcast and she's just, like my grandma, murdered my grandpa the podcast and she's just like.
Speaker 2:My grandma murdered my grandpa.
Speaker 1:What I was like, manda, you didn't get her to write down the story on a napkin?
Speaker 2:no, I told her to email it and she said, okay, you better follow up with her they were like mafia ties.
Speaker 1:But she poisoned him. Aqua tifana, that's what I said. I said, oh, it was either bella, was it bella donna? And then she's like I don't know. I said was it aqua tifana? And everyone at the table's like what?
Speaker 2:the fuck. Yeah, get this girl away from me. She knows way too much about poison most of them knew me, so it was fine, fair, okay, uh, okay, are you ready to open the shop up?
Speaker 1:I'm ready. Do you have a question for me?
Speaker 2:I do have a question for you, but I have a statement first. Oh, we all know and I want to start this out by saying this earnestly that Aaron is amazing. However, if you could marry, instead of Aaron, anybody dead, who would it be?
Speaker 1:I had an instant answer for alive.
Speaker 2:Sorry, that's not the question.
Speaker 1:Huh, I can't think of anybody dead.
Speaker 2:There's so many dead people it's hard to pick just one.
Speaker 1:No, I've just no one's coming to mind that I would want to marry, okay. Well, should I be oh my God, there has to be.
Speaker 2:There's like billions of dead people.
Speaker 1:I know, but to marry, yeah, that's not like you don't just pick it, like that's different than hanging out with Okay, let's lower the pressure.
Speaker 2:How about date?
Speaker 1:I can't think of anybody who would you.
Speaker 2:If anybody me know, betty white, obviously, oh god damn, I would marry her too. I was thinking guys oh yeah this is 2025, at least be a lesbian. In our current state of the world, you can still marry anybody you want okay, a guy who would you pick?
Speaker 2:um, see, that's hard. Hmm, oh, anton yelkin. Who's anton yelkin? He was in charlie bartlett and he was in the Star Trek movies Alpha Dog. He was just a really cute little Russian guy. I don't know, I'll look it up, but this is going to be. He was like a super famous actor. He got this is going to bug me Crushed by his own Jeep. It was actually really sad.
Speaker 1:Oh, I do remember hearing that yeah.
Speaker 2:OK, well, you think about it as it pops into your head who you would marry. You just let me know, although if you think on it too long, partway through this episode you might not want to do that anymore.
Speaker 1:But oh, Heath Ledger, oh there you go. Duh, Because in my head he's not dead. That one is like when you remember every couple months.
Speaker 2:it is a hard one still, also years later, rip to michelle trachtenberg. I know we already talked about it, but I would also love her. She's so cute. Oh, she's a little baddie. Okay, all right, ready to get into it. Yes, I think I don't fucking know. We know that people fall in love all the time, most of the time with people, oh god. As we've seen on tlc though sometimes it's carnival rides, cars or dolls- I swear to god, but there are those out there, cara, who still crave traditional marriage.
Speaker 2:However, the one they crave may be from beyond the grave, so we're gonna start this episode is this relationships of people, dead people or okay? We're gonna start it with a definition that I'm certain after googling I've been added to some new database for being a complete weirdo. Oh, but spectrophilia is a term used to describe a sexual or romantic relationship or attraction to ghosts and spirits. It's one of the most obscure forms of paraphilia and exists in both psychological literature and paranormal lore.
Speaker 2:So it's not a firmly or oh my God, I cannot talk today You're me.
Speaker 2:I was going to say something like you. Well, not a formally recognized diagnosis in the DSM-5. It is a real concept discussed in fringe psychology, folklore and pop culture. So in case you're like me and thought paraphilia had something to do with the paranormal, it actually doesn't, because spectrophilia is under the umbrella of paraphilia. Paraphilia is just an experience or reoccurring intense sexual arousal to atypical objects, places, situations, fantasies, behaviors or individuals because, remember, para is just like not normal right, yeah, I just you know normal, so it's it makes sense.
Speaker 1:This is gonna be funny episode, I can feel it, but oh, it's gonna be a good one you would. You need to start listening to two girls, one ghost, because they have the wildest write-ins of stories of this shit that happen to people.
Speaker 2:Oh, I got some good ones for you. Okay, but in case you need it written or wrote, oh my God, read to you. Like a drug, commercial Effects of spectrophilia can include feeling sexually attracted, ghosts or spirit beings, belief in or experience of sexual encounters with spirits, romantic relationships with invisible or supernatural entities, fantasies involving the paranormal or incorporeal lovers. I think I did pretty good.
Speaker 1:Okay, you did really good, but I thought I heard something.
Speaker 2:Oh, that was Reptar. Okay, reptar is settling in for bed. Okay, Because I was like what is that? Yeah, if you were hearing a scratching noise in the background it was just my lizard.
Speaker 1:Oh, it's the baby.
Speaker 2:Obviously, though, this can be, like you know, harmless fantasy to deep belief. If you're anything like me, you're probably thinking of pop culture references, like the movie ghost scary movie too or even kesha's song supernatural, which she explained in 2012 is about sexy experiences with the paranormal that she had um shout out crazy for swayze podcast though, because we were on that and we talked about ghosts I know that's what kind of like even though there was a long time ago started to kind of get me down this road which then I had to look into the kesha song a little bit more.
Speaker 2:And she, like legit, had a moment with a ghost. She's quoted in an interview saying I don't know his name, he was a ghost, but I was very open to it.
Speaker 1:Love her leave it to kesha alien singing aliens.
Speaker 2:She's amazing, okay. So obviously this is something that happens. We're gonna get into some fun stories of it, but first I gotta hit you with a historical and cultural significance. Okay, there's actually like a lot of this that has happened through history in different cultures, so the first being in china. They had the practice of ming hun, or spirit marriage, so this could be a marriage in which either one or both parties are deceased. It's kind of strange. Um, it goes all the way back to the han dynasty, so like 206 bc to 220 ad, it is now very much illegal today to practice, but it kind of comes from the practice of the yin-yang philosophy, where energies have to merge and balance to create harmony. One of the earliest cases of this happening is the son of Cao Cao, an infamous warmonger, and his son, cao Chong, in the year 208, dies at the young age of 13. But his family scrambled to find him a wife in death, settling on the deceased single daughter of a person in the zen clan, and so a ritualistic wedding was performed.
Speaker 1:They were buried together that in hopes that maybe if they didn't know each other in life, they would get along well in death I don't know if I think that that's like a cute, um, like cultural thing to like bring yourself peace, or if it's really fucking creepy weird. So I don't know how I feel bring the living piece.
Speaker 2:But the whole thing is like they believe that the energies exist on after death and it was shameful to not be married, so they didn't want the family to be brought shame. Oh well then I definitely don't like it. It's yeah, it's a little different. Even more different is there's also times where a living person was married to a dead person.
Speaker 1:Here's what I don't like about this is it's just the fact that we're saying it's shameful because you're not married. You died at fucking 13. Right, that's. How is that shameful to your?
Speaker 2:family, and then again 13 was probably old back in, you know.
Speaker 1:I mean maybe, but I'm just saying you died right. You didn't have the opportunity to be married, so I don't understand how it can be shameful to your family. That just kind of pisses me off. It does.
Speaker 2:All right, well, you can be pissed off at the ancient Chinese, but sometimes it was a living and a dead person. That's even fucking weirder. That would be like, a lot of times, the ghost marriage. Again, it was to get around the shame. Um. It was also, though, to carry on family names, so like if a son died before he was able to oh, yeah, yeah, have children marry off, and then the name yeah, and then her children would carry his last name.
Speaker 1:Now it gets a little dicey, but her children aren't from him.
Speaker 2:Yep, but she has his name, so the family lives on I know.
Speaker 1:So then, what happens to the person that she actually has children with?
Speaker 2:His family name doesn't get to go on so a lot of time they were adopted, oh, okay, or sometimes they were stand-ins yes.
Speaker 1:I'll accept the adoption.
Speaker 2:What I love about it, though, is like the ceremony for this wasn't any different than a real wedding, so there would be cake, gifts, ceremonies, receptions. It does become illegal in 1949, which is, in all honesty, not that long ago because there was a lot of corpse thieving starting to happen. Why do you need the corpse?
Speaker 1:I don't really know, but apparently it was happening enough that they made it illegal, although there are rumors that it still occurs. Body snatching in general is just so wild. We should talk about that.
Speaker 2:It would just smell so bad.
Speaker 1:So bad.
Speaker 2:Okay. So our next country, though, that also practices this is the country of Sudan, where ghost marriages are actually still all the rage. Um, it's in just a specific part of the country with the newer people and uer. When a man dies in sudan prior to being married, a ghost marriage is almost always performed, and often a non-deceased brother will stand in for the groom.
Speaker 2:So in sudan, okay, wealth can only be held by the male of the family yep and if there's multiple brothers, the like the oldest has to get married first, take his portion of the wealth and then go down the line. So if the oldest one dies, the existing one just gets to basically pretend to be him, um, and and the children are recognized to be of the deceased groom's lineage, not the brother's.
Speaker 1:Why do you have to pretend to be him? Just give the fucking money to the living brother. Why do we have to pretend to be our dead brother?
Speaker 2:I don't know. Okay, Listen, I'm not knocking any of his culture.
Speaker 1:It does not make sense to me and I don't understand that. I'm sorry.
Speaker 2:One of the other things, though, that a lot of the women in Sudan will do, right Like if they have, like, a partner who died and they don't want to lose the wealth they already have, they will get remarried to just a ghost, because then the ghost is in control of the wealth and they are the administrator of it.
Speaker 1:Because that makes so much sense.
Speaker 2:Listen their wealth is also only measured in cows, and ghosts can obviously have cows. It makes a lot. If this doesn't make sense to you, the rest of this episode angle makes sense to you. I'll promise you that right now.
Speaker 1:I mean it doesn't make sense, but it's just. It seems idiotic to me. I understand it's a cultural thing and it's not our culture, so we will not get it.
Speaker 2:But and we probably shouldn't call it idiotic before we get canceled- I just it seems idiotic to me.
Speaker 1:I'm not saying it is. It just seems idiotic Like I'm going to pretend to marry a dead person to be the administrator of money.
Speaker 2:At least there is logic here. Okay, we're going to get to some stories where there ain't any logic. Okay, our last country that does this, india. So they do a lot of practicing of deceased marriages, but they're seen as more symbolic at least, rather than real, in a practice called Preva Kalyanam Probably murdered that.
Speaker 2:So you know, india already believes in like a lot of arranged marriages, and that these arrangements were made in heaven to be chosen by people on earth, or not chosen, but to be carried out by people on earth right. So, before their bodies even enter the world, the heavens already know who they're supposed to marry. Marriage, marry again. The marriages are done in the same, like typical celebrations, as human marriages. Most of the time, these ones, though, do involve two people who are already passed, usually young, in their childhood or teens. Tradition rose from the belief that life is incomplete without marriage and that the soul of an unmarried departed family member may wander on without rest, and not only without rest, but because they were so restless it would actually create bad luck and have bad things happen to their family.
Speaker 1:I can get down on that one I figured this would get you.
Speaker 2:So their souls are wandering in search of peace. Once they have that marriage that was arranged for them, that they weren't able to get while they were on the planet, it would kind of put the soul to rest and bring good luck to the family and let them live on together in the afterlife.
Speaker 1:I can get down on that one. I like that one. I like that one because it's not like oh my God, the living is like I'm disgraced because my dead loved one couldn't be married.
Speaker 2:This is kind of like you're doing it for your loved one's soul, like hopefully they find companionship and they can be happy the thing here that was kind of interesting to me and this just shows, like, how much they still think about their families after they pass and all that sort of stuff. So a lot of these happen years and years and years after both partners are dead. So like the longest one they've had was almost 30 years.
Speaker 1:Is it just because they wait for them to get like a certain age, or just because they find somebody that's fitting?
Speaker 2:Like they just finally found that fitting person.
Speaker 1:See, I kind of like that, to be completely honest, because I feel like a lot of cultures are good at like what you, exactly what you just said, like they they're remembering the dead for a very long time, like they're not just forgetting it. I feel like no shade to white people. Sometimes we're just like somebody died and they died throw them in the ground, we move on.
Speaker 2:Yep, get over it pretty much. You get a little bit to grieve. If you're really lucky, you get three weeks off of work uh-huh.
Speaker 1:But a lot of cultures are like they celebrate. You know they're. I don't know if it's like considered their death anniversary or they celebrate them on their birthday. Still, they do like all these like things, like all the time to just have like remembrance, which I actually think is really cool. We should do more of that.
Speaker 2:I know I have like a couple of things up on my altar for family members, but I do want to build like an ancestral. Separate from this one. That's something we should. We should. We should do a how to guide on it. Separate from this one. That's something we should. We should. We should do a how-to guide on it, who? Okay, so we've talked about some of the traditional ghost marriages, um, but there are people still practicing spectrophilia in a little less traditional ways. Do you want some stories?
Speaker 2:I do, I really do okay, first is the story of amanda te. So Amanda is a 52-year-old psychic medium from Northern Ireland. Okay, she lives a pretty interesting life, because if being a medium is not enough, you know, speaking with the dead for fun, she is also a Jack Sparrow impersonator, like from Pirates of the Caribbean. I've definitely heard of this woman, mm-hmm. So she was down on her luck in the business of finding a partner, but that all changed when her soulmate showed up. So, in 2014, while laying in bed, amanda is visited by a spirit, the spirit of a 300-year-old ghost, of a Haitian man, mm-hmm. Okay, even though he's 300 years old and he's Haitian, he lets her know that his name is, oddly, jack, you know, like Jack Sparrow, totally normal. So he was particularly drawn to her because, you see, in his life he was actually a 19th century pirate who also suffered from loneliness Because he was left at the altar before ultimately being executed for leading a life of thievery. Okay, okay, how are we feeling about Amanda and her lover so far?
Speaker 1:I just keep going.
Speaker 2:This is as normal as it gets, okay, I know. So she's visited by Jack. She learns more of his story. They start to form a connection. The connection turns into a spark and that spark turns into deeply developed feelings for one another. In an interview with People magazine, amanda says this was about six months of communication so I finally accepted it. Obviously we had spent a lot of time together. So six months of talking to Jack. They became official.
Speaker 2:Oh, wow, how cute, by the way, she's a mother of five who is previously married too, so she has a lot of family that maybe should have talked to her about this a little bit. I don't know. So she goes on to say I was horrified to discover I had romantic feelings for him, having never heard of that before. It's almost like falling for somebody forbidden, like a friend's husband. She said I tried to ignore it but it wouldn't go away. So they did what any couple would do and they have completely normal dates. They would watch tv and movies and go on long drives together uh, what a very um well-adjusted woman.
Speaker 1:Well, her example uh like what did she say?
Speaker 2:they would go on.
Speaker 1:No, no like her example of like falling in love with your friend's husband, it's a forbidden love. That's because that bitch had fallen in love with one of her friend's husbands.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, no, she speaks from experience, for sure.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you don't use that example. That's such a specific example.
Speaker 2:Listen. Okay, she got a little bit more comfortable with it over time At least it wasn't her living friend's husband, and she's quoted saying I did some research and found out that it's a real thing and there's lots of people in spiritual relationships, but not many people like to talk about it.
Speaker 1:Can I ask you, in the research that she did, did she actually research this Haitian pirate to see if he was a real human?
Speaker 2:I couldn't find much on that. She just trusted him, okay, okay. Things start to heat up between the two. They start to have a more intimate and sexual relationship.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Not sure how that works, but Amanda seemed pretty satisfied, or at least partially, because she wanted more, you know, and by more I mean a marriage Merge. So she states growing up in Ireland in my era you were taught that if a man bedded you he should wed you.
Speaker 1:She's saying If a man bedded you, he should wed you. Can we put that on a shirt?
Speaker 2:Yes, oh my God, it just reminds me of Grease. Won't go to bed till I'm legally wet, I can't.
Speaker 2:I was, I thought, for sure you would get that one or pull that one out, okay. So she goes on to say I knew from my research that spiritual marriage was the thing, so it was more me that wanted to get married to him. He would have been happy, like most men, with just sex. Well, one thing leads to another, and Jack eventually proposes to Amanda Couldn't figure out how he did that. They finally do get married to each other, though in a private ceremony in international waters off the coast of England, because this is the only place where it wasn't specifically illegal.
Speaker 2:Amanda, along with her five children and close family and friends, get married at a ceremony in 2015. She does bring in another psychic medium. Okay, to allow jack to speak through her, and he did say I do, but she couldn't put a ring on his finger, so she put it on a candle to symbolically represent his finger. Uh, she said jack was represented, represented by a Jolly Roger skull and crossbones flag. He specifically, or his specifically designed wedding ring, was placed on a candle as he could not present a hand on which it could be placed. She sounds really well adjusted to me.
Speaker 1:What does her family think?
Speaker 2:Well, her family and friends were there, so they at least supported it a little bit.
Speaker 1:I don't. Ok. I want to start by saying I already have more before I.
Speaker 2:Oh no, we're only halfway through her.
Speaker 1:No, no For her story.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, no, there's plenty more.
Speaker 1:I was just going to say that I'm not. I don't not believe this. I want to just clarify that what is unbelievable to me is the lengths that this woman then went I think she's completely delusional if you're gonna have your little relationship, that's fine, but yeah. But what I was also gonna say is did anyone help her as long as far as, like, maybe mental health, like, is she okay because she does get better?
Speaker 2:so did they get divorced? Uh, she would just stop talking. Okay, so, um, after the wedding she got mixed reviews. She said that the reaction was quite shocking. Really, in this day and age it's cool to be whatever, or so you think, but apparently we're not yet open-minded enough in society to accept relationships between us and other realms.
Speaker 1:What year was this?
Speaker 2:Uh, 2015. Oh, okay. So unfortunately, as you assumed, ghost marriages can suffer the same pitfalls as regular marriages and unfortunately for Amanda, she does not get her fairytale ending with Jack, so she came back into the spotlight in 2018. With this quote, so I feel it's time to let everyone know that my marriage is over. She says in the Irish mirror. I will explain all in due course, but for now, all I want to say is to be very careful when dabbling in spirituality. It's not something to mess with. Shortly after the wedding, her health begins to deteriorate.
Speaker 2:She starts to suffer from abscesses, sepsis and cirrhosis Sucking the life out of her. Well, to me those all sound like the similar symptoms of, uh, a drinking problem. But you know, it was definitely jack.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it only took about four or five months yeah right only took about four or five months into the marriage before she realized things were going downhill. So this is it really struck her not only when her health was declining, but when her dog toby died. See, toby didn't like jack and he was always very aggressive towards jack's spirit and eventually ultimately died suspiciously so if your animal is suspicious of a spirit, you should listen to your animal absolutely.
Speaker 2:If your animal is suspicious of anybody, now jack and amanda do continue to be intimate, even after toby and her deteriorating health. Um, she states I had never had these abscesses before I was with jack, so she stopped having sex with him to see if it made a difference, and apparently it did and she started to heal up a little bit. So she decides she needs to do something and she wants to deliberate with her board of spirit advisors.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:And when she finally gets through to them, they let her know that they've been trying to reach her for a long time and Jack has actually possessed her and has been stealing her energy. Ding, ding, ding Another point for Kara, I guess in the next part. So she confronts her husband and he threatens to kill her if she attempts to leave him. Uh, she's quoted saying he was basically like an energy vampire. He wanted to continue living through my body isn't that a succubus?
Speaker 2:yeah, well, a succubus is um a female. Yeah, it is. I can't remember what the name of it is when it's a male succubus.
Speaker 1:Oh, it's gonna make me mad. It's succubus and incubus incubus.
Speaker 2:Thank you there we go, um okay. So she eventually does find the courage to leave him. She gets divorced, she exercises him and just completely cuts him out. Or, as I like to say, she ghosted him how do you get a divorce?
Speaker 1:um, does she even have to Because he's like dead? Well, she, or technically she's not a real yeah, never mind.
Speaker 2:So she does divorce him, she does exercise him. She says I was stronger than him. Ultimately, I'm proud of what I did and I'm really proud that I managed to get my life back together and, as a result, she's made a full recovery from her ailments and she's decided to cut ties with the spiritual world, no longer practicing being a medium uh, because she's just too terrified of it all I hope that her divorce party was like in practical magic, where um they're trying to get him out of her and they're all sitting around a circle I imagine it was pretty much exactly like she's, like you know, sweating and screaming and he's like trying to get out of her and I, I imagine it's like much exactly like that, and she's sweating and screaming and he's trying to get out of her.
Speaker 1:I imagine it's like that. That's how her divorce party was, I'm sure.
Speaker 2:You also should look up pictures of this woman, because she looks pretty much like what you. I mean, she was a Jack Sparrow in person.
Speaker 1:Okay, I know I've seen her as a I didn't know that part, but I know what's her name again Amanda, that part, but I know what's her name again amanda teague, t-a-g-u-e. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, okay oh, and her wedding is.
Speaker 2:She looks beautiful, oh, yeah, she. She loves the spotlight she got for her, though she did interviews on interviews, on interviews, so there's a lot out there on her. Our next bride, however, is a singer-songwriter from oxfordshire, england, who goes by the name of brocard. Okay, but that would be brocard all one word with an e at the end. So she is a 41 year old woman who claims that the spirit of a victorian soldier named eduardo oh eduardo made a surprise visit to her bedroom in 2021.
Speaker 1:I like Eduardo better than Jack.
Speaker 2:Right, it's a little more original, eduardo. I think Amanda made it all up. Okay, wow. Brocard, though, notes there was a stormy night and the energy was high, and he appeared to her being devilishly handsome, and the relationship starts to blossom.
Speaker 1:Do you think that there's an Eduardo that's not devilishly handsome?
Speaker 2:I just think that that name makes you have to be handsome, that's fair, maybe the beast from Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends, but he was cute, okay, anyways, back to Brocard. So she describes feeling Eduardo's presence, including sensations like breath on her ear and whispers of I love you. She felt his touch and developed a deep emotional connection which she found more fulfilling than previous human relationships.
Speaker 1:Eduardo getting it done.
Speaker 2:Right, except their relationship wasn't without its rough patches. So bro card stated that after she first went public about the relationship that he tried ghosting her. But oh but. She wrote a song about him to win him back and it worked why did he try to ghost her?
Speaker 1:do we know?
Speaker 2:because he wasn't happy that she went public about the relationship. He's cheap. He wanted to keep it just between them yeah, it's because he's got other bitches?
Speaker 2:oh for sure, uh, he states. Or she states I wrote the song to win eduardo back after he ghosted me for publicly disclosing our romance. I wanted it to express the passion that I feel within my soul ever since meeting eduardo. Do we have the song? Oh, you can listen to all of her songs, uh, and I strongly urge you to uh, because this isn't the only song about eduardo. So, as the relationship progresses, the next step is obviously again a proposal which came again from our deceased groom. So, according to bro card, she recounts waking up and finding a floral diamond ring on her bed one day, and her bathroom mirror was fogged with steam from the shower and it was written the words Will you marry me A floral diamond ring? Yeah, I don't what?
Speaker 1:does that mean I?
Speaker 2:think the metal was like floral work and the diamonds were oh, okay, okay, okay.
Speaker 2:Okay, she accepts. And in 2022, the couple are married at the Asylum Chapel in Peckham, london, on Halloween night Wow, she was looking very Wednesday Addams with a beautiful black dress. Okay, and this one was attended by the living friends family again but also the dead attended as well. And Eduardo invited some very notorious guests, including Marilyn Manson and Elvis he had some connections guests including Marilyn Manson and Elvis. He had some connections, so they're getting married in front of this beautiful crowd, Marilyn and Elvis included Is Marilyn Manson dead. Marilyn Monroe.
Speaker 1:You said Marilyn Manson.
Speaker 2:Oh my God, I mean Monroe, not Manson. I'm sure though he was probably there in the living. I was like Marilyn. Oh, my God Again.
Speaker 1:Marilyn Monroe and Elvis. I was like wait, he, oh my god, again. Marilyn monroe and elvis.
Speaker 2:I was like wait, he died not.
Speaker 2:I'm glad we clarified that that's gonna make the next part make a lot of sense. So they had some issues on the wedding night itself. Um, she says eduardo just couldn't resist winding me up and made an inappropriate comment about marilyn looking hot. I was like really, it's our wedding day. The comment completely ruined my evening. Wow, but they still decide to move forward with the honeymoon, where, she states, the whole trip just seemed to get worse and worse.
Speaker 2:She claimed that Eduardo wrestled her to the ground on a beach as she tried to be passionate and romantic with him, but she just ended up being covered in her own ice cream when she tried to share her dessert with him. What the fuck? She said that the honeymoon was supposed to be amazing, but her unpredictable husband ruined the trip. He's a ghost because not only was he rough with her, he was cheap. Well, he's a ghost, which explains the cheapness. She went on to say eduardo obviously doesn't have a bank card, so it's always me that has to pick up the tab everywhere we visit. And he certainly likes to go wild in our hotel room mini bars. So he's drinking up all the liquor, drinking it all through the mini bars. She said the liquor bottles always mysteriously left empty. Okay. So they make it through the honeymoon, though, but holidays can be a difficult time for spirits.
Speaker 2:So around christmas, she said, things haven't gotten any better, says brocard, who released a single in 22 around christmas time, uh called. It's christmas again, which details what it's like to be the wife of a ghost at christmas time. Her quotes keep coming. Eduardo is really jealous at christmas. I've tried every day this week to put the christmas tree up, but he just keeps knocking it over. Why? I god only knows. He's probably drinking the mini bar again. So apparently, though, they're unable to make things work in the long term and in 2023, brocard states. He grew increasingly more aggressive and nasty and began to haunt me with the sound of a screaming baby. I concluded that the only way to get rid of eduardo was to exercise him, so I embarked on the harrowing process in the chapel we got married in. After hours, he was finally purged from my system. I felt light and free and excited to be released of his troubled spirit. She has since released another song called Just Another Anthem, which contains all the details of the split. Please go listen to all three of these songs.
Speaker 2:The music video oh no includes a reenacting of the demonic evictions with the accompanying lyrics toss the bouquet to a bride a day. Celebrate the hate we invite to play. I'm divorcing the line of your decay. You've taken me to my knees.
Speaker 2:Let's play shut so since the exorcism and divorce, though, she's lived a much more joyful life, and she concludes by saying I haven't felt his presence or seen him. The whole energy has shifted and life feels more light and joyful. I am quite adamant that I no longer want to be haunted by eduardo, so his presence isn't welcome in my life. Boom bitch. So now we have two stories of budding love, marriage and divorce, all in the spiritual realm, which, like, if it's happening in, even getting married to ghosts. I don't want marriage. I think I'm good, I'll just be single. Okay, I know we're already getting kind of long, but I'm not done yet I didn't think you were I went to reddit, baby, so we have two stories, uh, and these are much shorter, um.
Speaker 2:The first one is from bathroom number 3588, who writes I'm in a romantic relationship with a ghost and nobody believes me oh god starting off strong, then this is a throwaway account because I don't want to be harassed or anything.
Speaker 1:What we met not too long ago I was gonna say what subreddit is this on? Oh it doesn't matter if you don't know, I was just curious.
Speaker 2:Have it linked above? Um, I cannot remember, though that's okay. We met not too long ago. He had been occupying my new apartment and I first saw him the night I moved in. I smelled something absolutely horrid in the bedroom and was looking everywhere for the source. The smell got stronger and then I saw him. At first he looked like just a ball of light passing by my eyes, just a dust particle, but as time went on he began to trust me. His form became more recognizable. He has no legs, only a tail. He's transparent and emits a soft blue glow. I'm pretty sure she's dating Casper Soft blue glow and a tail. Hey, but Casper was hot. That's an interesting take. He's like a child.
Speaker 1:No, he's like a teenage boy and when I watched it I was a teenage girl. He's hot, Fair. Everybody had a crush on Casper.
Speaker 2:I definitely did not.
Speaker 1:You don't remember the original Casper, the movie the actor?
Speaker 2:Oh, like before he was a ghost.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:I don't remember what he looks like, but I thought you were talking about the blue thing with the tail.
Speaker 1:I mean he was adorable, you and bathroom number 3588, would get along great.
Speaker 2:I was never afraid of him, but I was curious. I think he saw that I wasn't afraid and that's what made him interact with me in a non-threatening way. The first time he talked to me was surprising. He had a heavy Brooklyn accent, sort of like you'd hear in an old TV show. He told me about his self. His name is Stanley and he died in the early 70s via hanging in the very apartment I was living in. He even showed me the exact spot. It was unnerving, but instead of fear I felt mostly sad.
Speaker 1:See, I want these people to actually do the research.
Speaker 2:I know he would show up nightly at first and we would talk for a bit. Then, as we grew closer, he would manifest during the day too. Once you get over the initial strangeness of it all, you stop viewing them as a ghost and just see them as another person. I think that's when I started to fall in love with him. I was able to see his personality and quirks and we were just so damn compatible. I didn't tell him about my feelings for a while because I had no idea how he would feel, but when I eventually did confess, he seemed excited. He said he felt the same way. I eventually did confess. He seemed excited.
Speaker 1:He said he felt the same way and that was just the start of our love. I just I'm not saying that this cannot happen because if everything else goes related, like people literally have friendships with ghosts True, I'm not saying that it can't happen. I mean, like every time we go to Eloise they say, oh, we missed you, you're back. Like I'm not saying I will say this story. I mean, look at, every time we go to Eloise they say, oh, we missed you, you're back.
Speaker 2:Like I'm not saying I will say this story to me seems at least a little bit more legit than our last two.
Speaker 1:Correct. I do think that maybe the last two, perhaps still getting to the point where you're like going to different countries or whatever, traveling around to get married to like ghosts that I do think that there might be, it's a bit much. I think there might be some drinking or some mental things we gotta work towards, but I'm not saying this stuff can't happen and there's.
Speaker 1:This process isn't from drinking, it's from the spirit sex there are so many stories, though, that you can deep dive into of just like this type of stuff happening, like not necessarily relationships, but just things happening where it's like I.
Speaker 2:This is one of the first times I didn't have to go digging for reddit stories. I had to pick oh yeah, giant stack.
Speaker 1:Okay, but to continue on this, no, no, we're not done with this one, okay, okay uh, she said we're just like any other couple really.
Speaker 2:The only difference is his ghostly form does make things a little strange. Sex is exciting, for example, but it can take a while to get used to how cold it is, compared to sex with a human. Oh yeah, it's sometimes sad that I can't feel the warmth from him physically, but I feel it in my heart and that's more than I could ever ask for. You can call me crazy or whatever. I've been called all the things and more. My mom tried to get me admitted to a psych ward when I told her about Stanley. Oh, our relationship was never great, but that sealed it for me. We don't talk anymore. My friends are a bit more accepting, although they don't seem to actually believe he exists either.
Speaker 1:He's very shy around most people, so bringing them to the apartment would really prove anything.
Speaker 2:I don't hold that against him, though I don't hold that against him, though I wouldn't trust people either, if I had gone through what he did in this life.
Speaker 1:No Stanley needs to come forward and prove himself Right. Be the man. That's the thing.
Speaker 2:It's kind of the duty of the spirit partner to help your friends. Not think you're crazy.
Speaker 1:I mean you're saying, I mean she's, she, I think, is saying that her mom and her don't have a good relationship. So that's fine, you don't have to put shit to her. But to the friends though that are like on the board, like their borderline, like they believe her, but they're probably like I don't really know what to do with this. So I'm just going to believe you. You can prove yourself Absolutely. Do something, Stanley, Come on.
Speaker 2:Come on, Stanley, God damn it. Stanley Gives a whole different meaning to flat Stanley, eh, Okay. The last one is much shorter. This is from Infrashell and she says I have a ghost boyfriend. I've always been interested in the paranormal and wanted to experience more, and now I have a ghost boyfriend.
Speaker 2:In April of this year I met somebody who had a lot of death surrounding them. Let's just call him Alex. It was odd, but I felt an extreme pull to help him and an extreme pull to use a Ouija board with him. In the past I've never messed with a board and, honestly, I've always been a little bit frightened. Still, I knew I had to try it out with this particular individual Barely an acquaintance, I hate that word. I invited Alex back to my apartment so we could just try using the board. During the session, the name Chad came through. Chad, Stunned Alex, explained that a friend of his died a few years back and his name was Chad. I knew essentially nothing about Alex's deceased friend and watched as Alex and Chad talked to each other through the board. Alex had never been into the paranormal and was sitting next to me, shocked, exclaiming that it was his friend, Alex, and I began to be able to feel Chad's presence in my home, and Alex explained being able to feel Chad's hands on his shoulders for comfort. I felt similar sensations and a clear presence.
Speaker 2:Following this session, my extreme pull towards Alex started to dissipate, but in the days later I still noticed sensing Chad's presence. I could still feel him and knew when he was around. Days turn into weeks, weeks turn into months and to this day Chad is still with me. I talk to him through the board semi-regularly and have found that I can sense his feelings and thoughts, as well as his touch. We've become very close and have a physical relationship as well.
Speaker 2:Chad likes feet and enjoys touching mine while I'm occupied doing other things. He also tells me I'm beautiful and that he loves me. Sometimes I even get visions where I can see where he is and what he's doing. Over time I have learned the nuances of his personality, how he likes to communicate his spelling habits on the board and what makes him happy. We've had everything from lighthearted, joking conversations to serious talks about life and, what's important. He's even protective. If I mentioned using the board somewhere else, which he clearly tells me not to do, some of my friends believe me, but at the same time it can be hard not to question my own beliefs. Yet I have noticed my own ties strengthening to him over time as I sense him more and more easily.
Speaker 1:Okay, number one. I can't listen to the name chad without getting distracted, and it reminds me of tom green's character from charlie's angels I just hate that name in general.
Speaker 1:I've actually never seen charlie's angels, though it's actually a really that one's a really good movie. Uh, sam rockwell's in it. He's hot as hell, but anyway, um, tom green plays chad and he's just like a dorky character. But he's's like is it? Is it the Chad, the Chad? And he's like it's just Tom Green, so you can. But anyway, number two here's the thing about these two last stories. Again, I'm not saying I don't believe in these. I do think that these two sound more likely than the first two that you explained.
Speaker 2:But here's my thing Chad and Stanley, you need to show yourself to other people than just I agree that's kind of like their duty in this relationship but number two um, I feel really bad for these people.
Speaker 1:Are they both girls? I'm gonna sit, we're assuming, yes, whatever these people, it doesn't matter what they are, because you're ruining your life, whether you think, whether this is real or not. Hey, if they're happy, then they're happy.
Speaker 2:They are because you're ruining your life, whether you think whether this is real or not.
Speaker 1:Hey, if they're happy, then they're happy, I know, but you're never going to have like a quote unquote normal life and you're literally just going to be so. This person is going to be locked up in their apartment all the time because you can't take that board anywhere else and you can only talk to him in your apartment. You're literally not living your life.
Speaker 2:I agree with you there. But at least these two seem genuine, where the first two stories I feel like those are like they're just looking for attention.
Speaker 1:They're going to so many news sources and all that for sure I'm I'm just saying, if I'm going to believe all of these stories, I'm just saying these are bad relationships to be in because it's a little toxic. You're literally gonna go mental. Oh yeah, because you're go mental, oh yeah, because you're, if they aren't already not going to.
Speaker 1:You're not right, but you're not doing anything. So you're just going to sit in your apartment and be like talking through this board. You're not going to have any relationships Like. Your friends are probably going to end up dropping you because, not because I think you're crazy, but because if you're not leaving your house and you can't do that know what I mean? Like I don't know, I kind of feel bad, okay. So let me ask you this question would I still marry heath leisure?
Speaker 2:would you ever have a ghost marriage? Actually, no. What if since we're on the topic of chad's chad michael murray dies one day? He comes to you through a spirit board and wants you to be in a relationship with him. What are you doing?
Speaker 1:I'm gonna be in a relationship with chad, michael murray all right, so you'll be in a relationship with Chad.
Speaker 2:Michael Murray All right, so you'll be in a relationship with Chad. That's fine. My computer is about to explode.
Speaker 1:But also, why would we wish death on him?
Speaker 2:That's so I didn't say we wish death. I said what if one day he dies and comes to you through a spirit board?
Speaker 1:It's hypothetical I will be in a relationship with him.
Speaker 2:All right, perfect. Well, that's what on spectrophilia and marriages from beyond the grave. Except, I want to leave you one last quote from the top of a Reddit thread oh, boy. Somebody's comment on there just made me. I love this. It was love knows no bounds, not even the veil between the living and the dead, with a little smiley face.
Speaker 1:I mean, you know, at least they're getting some support from Redditors. That's amazing. Again, I am not saying that these are not real, because I do think that this shit happens. I really do. Energy is energy, baby. It's weird. But do I think that you need to have full blown relationships? No, I don't.
Speaker 2:I think there's healthier outlets. I think there's some loneliness, some delusion and especially in one of our friends cases with the cirrhosis, I think there was some drinking well and the other one with the mini bar bottles, whatever yeah, I think they were both drinking. I think they were both. There was, there were some spirits and the one just listen they just have cats yeah, makes sense okay well, that's what I got for you.
Speaker 1:what emoji should we leave for this? Is there like a wedding emoji? Is there? Isn't there like a dove? Like a wedding dove that has like the flowers? Isn't that supposed to be like a wedding thing? Yeah?
Speaker 2:Let's go with that. One In a coffin.
Speaker 1:Oh, okay, yeah, so two emojis. Yes, oh, my God, I know. I just remember what I was going to tell you at the top.
Speaker 2:Oh, let's go for it.
Speaker 1:Okay, so you know, I have on my porch, I have that hanging fern. Yes, I'm gonna send you a video. I took a video of this little sparrow and it's been chilling.
Speaker 1:It'll, is it jack? No, I have. I have string lights and it'll bop. It'll hang on, the string lights bop back forth. I think I might have been telling you. You did tell me it'll bop back and forth. Um, and it's so cute to listeners because I sat there at like midnight for like 30 minutes watching this little bird bop back and forth from each of the string lights and it's just the cutest little thing. I was having so much fucking fun and now I am a proud grandma of four little eggs in my fern.
Speaker 1:So I am just trying to decide if I'm just going to let the fern die or if I can water around the nest.
Speaker 2:I mean, they're not born yet, right? No, Water around it because nests get rained on.
Speaker 1:I know, but I just feel bad. I don't want to scare the little mama away. Yeah, I don't think she's getting scared away, though She'd be there all the time. Hey, you're one step closer to your crows. I know there all the time. Hey, you're one step closer to your crows. I know they're around. They're every morning. They're in the fucking front yard. They just won't come hang out with me. Yet they will.
Speaker 2:All right, so leave the dove and leave the coffin, and if you've ever been in a relationship with a ghost, tell us about it if you've ever been in a relationship with a ghost, call us and maybe call a therapist. We'll help you find one. Perfect, all right. What else do these folks need to?
Speaker 1:do before we close the shop up thank you for being here and listening to these weird fucking stories.
Speaker 2:Thanks for supporting the fucking idiocracy of us there's worse things to research on a Monday night, all right, so keep doing that.
Speaker 1:Thank you, we appreciate you, love you and the most important thing you can do for us is to creep a really little ad balls.
Speaker 2:Goodbye, thank you At the IE shop. The door's always open At the IE shop.
