EP 6: Haunted Burial Grounds: Exploring the History, Lore, and Legends of the Undead
Wondering Monsters Podcast |
In this chilling episode of the Wondering Monsters Podcast, the hosts dig into the dark, unsettling history of burial grounds and their long-standing connection to legends of the undead. From ancient pyramids and catacombs to modern cemeteries and haunted graveyards, the conversation weaves through centuries of death rituals, superstitions, and the persistent human fear of what lies beyond the grave.
Why Are Burial Grounds So Haunted?
The episode opens with a fundamental question: Why do burial grounds hold such a strong association with ghosts, zombies, and supernatural forces?
The hosts explore how cemeteries have become the default location for horror stories, despite being meant for rest and remembrance. This contradiction—between peace and horror—is central to the episode’s theme.
The discussion considers how modern media reinforces the idea that graveyards are prime real estate for hauntings and undead activity.
Cultural Practices Around Death
The hosts reflect on burial rituals across different civilizations, especially in the Western world. From Christian cemeteries to Gothic crypts and Victorian mourning customs, they explore how cultural attitudes toward death have evolved over time.
Everyone has them… burial rituals are everywhere.
They emphasize how some customs were rooted in spiritual beliefs aimed at preventing the dead from returning to disturb the living.
Origins of Zombie Lore
No episode on haunted burial grounds would be complete without discussing zombies. The hosts trace the folklore from Haitian Vodou—where corpses are reanimated through ritual magic—to the sensationalized, apocalyptic zombies of pop culture.
The mythological zombie was a cursed soul, not just a flesh-hungry monster.
The evolution of the zombie reflects modern fears of death, control, and contagion.
Haunted Pyramids and Sacred Sites
The discussion turns toward more ancient burial practices, such as Egyptian pyramids and Mayan temples. These were more than resting places—they symbolized spiritual power and a connection to the divine.
The episode explores the myth of the pharaoh's curse: Disturbing these ancient burial chambers brought doom upon archaeologists and treasure hunters.
Whether myth or truth, these stories reveal how ancient burial grounds continue to inspire awe and fear.
Ghosts, Spirits, and Cemetery Superstitions
Why do so many ghost stories begin in a cemetery? The hosts reflect on the archetype of the wandering spirit—entities often tied to burial grounds by grief, trauma, or unfinished business.
The episode touches on well-known superstitions, such as:
- Holding your breath when passing a cemetery
- Never stepping directly on graves
- The belief that souls linger near their physical remains
It’s not just about fear—it’s about emotional energy stored in these places.
Safety Coffins and the Fear of Premature Burial
One of the episode’s standout segments examines a disturbing piece of history: the safety coffin. In the 18th and 19th centuries, fear of being buried alive led to coffins equipped with bells, breathing tubes, and other escape mechanisms.
Can you imagine waking up underground and having to ring a bell to be saved?
It's a chilling reminder of how our fear of death often manifests in tangible inventions.
Why We Keep Coming Back to These Stories
The episode ends on a reflective note, asking: What keeps us fascinated by the undead and their haunted resting places?
Burial grounds are sacred spaces, steeped in emotion and tradition. Yet they continue to fuel our darkest tales.
The hosts conclude that cemeteries hold both cultural weight and storytelling power. When the wind howls and shadows stretch long, it’s easy to let your imagination take over.
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Also Mentioned in the Show
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Licensing Information
- Title: Entry of the Gladiators
- Composer: Julius Fučík
- Library of Congress (Public Domain)
- Podcast theme song version edited/arranged/mixed by Dan Swift
Unless indicated, images appear in their original form.
The following images were generated using AI from MyNinja.ai, NightCafe, or ChatGPT
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Transcription
*Transcription was automatically generated and may contain errors. (Upbeat Music)
MM: We're talking about zombies, I see. Where the undead come from, the cemeteries, the graveyards, like the haunted ritual sites of the pyramids, the catacombs, you know, like the scary stuff, you know, like where it's like, but yeah, but like, but I don't know, but is it? Yeah, there's a, seems like maybe not. The cemeteries we think of as being pretty scary. Like it does seem to be like in our modern stuff, that's where, you know, the ghosts are hanging out. I don't know why, you know, in cemeteries specifically, but yeah, I guess it's where their body is, if they're linked to it, you know, that's it. Yeah, it's a kind of, I mean, everyone has them. We all originalistic burial. I mostly focused on just because it's more in my knowledge, real house, and it's more relevant, I think to what we're talking about is like just Western burial stuff and that kind of thing. It seems more that that's more like of a modern thing. It tends to be more, you know, like starting in like more of like the Gothic era of, you know, literature and things like that. Cemeteries were actually like initially starting as graveyards, right, like in churches, but as like populations grow, cities start expanding, you know, like they like had to be, they couldn't contain them and it also became somewhat of a public, you know, health hazard and nuisance to have them in there. So they started making giant cemeteries, you know, but in like Victorian era and stuff like that, they're like, they're actually like the earliest form of public parks and people would hang out. I go and like, yeah, and it was like, so it was like the common ground and it was like people would go and like have a picnic there and do, so, you know, it was not that weird as things like other public parks and things come into play and we start shifting into like, you know, that kind of like, you know, late, like late 19th century, early 20th century, you, it starts changing and people's views on it start getting more, it's now it's more creepy and like the rise of that kind of, you know, Gothic literature like Edgar and Poe or like Dracula or Mary Shelley and like these, like idea of like, you know, cemeteries now start taking on this kind of creepy demeanor and like, and people are hanging out there. And then a lot of the haunting stuff, that's when that kind of starts coming into play, you know, and it's popular.
Baba: I wonder how much of it has to do with just our, the way we've been able to like really remove ourselves from exposure to death as a society. Because you think about like, when we talked about, talking about this before, like the idea of like, the funeral parlor used to be your parlor, like it was just in the house and the grave site might just be in your yard.
MM: It's like, as well everything-- Or the local church, you know, where you're like, of your community, you know, consecrated ground, you know, if you're--
Danny C: Baba, is that fact like they used to put them in their own backyard or you just had more of like, a speculating--
Baba: Well, I'm talking about like family burials and things. Yeah, particularly on the stage. Yeah, but as opposed to most of the world, you know, because we had more space still, you know, even now we kind of still do golf courses.
MM: I bounce that one off, you know, Edgar Allan Poe's tombstone.
Baba: But yeah, like, but the idea of the very local burial, the family burial plot or like that, the funeral, the body would sit in your parlor. And now it's kind of like, everything's like very far removed. First of all, not as many of us die again, once again, but largely in the States, you know, if you go back, you know, 120 years, you know, you know, infant mortality was way higher. It was much more likely to hear like, oh yeah, no, two of my brothers died when I was growing up or something like that. Or like, you know, that happened a lot more frequently. Death was a lot closer in that regard. And now it's kind of like, largely we're removed from it in this society. So a lot of it is like, it's just like you're alive and then there's death, you know, and so your death is over here and it's creepy because it's not like, it's not like this, you know, or whatever.
MM: Yeah, well, that's, I guess that's the, you know, the weird, yeah, like it's, yeah, maybe like, you're right, maybe it's more of like a kind of modern thing. Now, obviously like ritual, you know, burial and consecrating and things like that. It's like, that does go back. I mean, if you think about like, you know, those like the, you know, obviously there's modern catacombs, like the catacombs in Paris, I'll say modern in the sense of like, they're not, is that an ancient necropolis type of thing or something along those lines? But you have like the, like Roman catacombs, right? You know, I mean, Roman burial rituals, like, probably like the closest to our modern version, right? Where it's like, oh, like for the, but it was like the idea is like the person, you know, needs to be laid to rest so their spirit can rest, right? It's like, like, if they're not properly buried, that's when the things get hairy. Like, and it's like, and it's weird, like, the Romans did have like ghost stories, but none of them are really, it seems to me, at least I could find it, I'll relate to like the tombs, because that's where when people are buried properly, they don't haunt places. So like, there's actually like a, there's like a plenty, the elder, or no plenty, the younger part of the story, where that's like basically about a haunted house. And at the time, some other person who was like a philosopher or person or whatever, and he like wanted to see what this haunting was all about. So he went to the haunted house and stayed there. And he saw the ghost of a man in chains and walked outside and then stopped. And then he ordered that the area around the house be like exhumed and they found a corpse, who was a man who was chained and buried on the house site. And then when they buried him in the cemetery, or the catacombs or whatever, you know, properly the haunting stopped. So it was like, it was like not related to the cemetery. It was the lack of the ritual burial that caused the haunting like of the house, not.
Baba: It's not like, it's haunted because it's got bodies in it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's like, no, no, no, no, like the bodies were pretty unhappy about the way that they were made to rest. And so they're got to mess your sleep up. (Laughing)
Danny C: Does anyone know? So talking about burying people in the backyard, so to speak. (Laughing) So, you know, it wasn't uncommon for older houses when they had basements for the floors to be dirt. Okay? So do you know, does anyone know? Were they ever buried like in the basement or is it always outside? Does anyone know?
MM: I would imagine it's always, I'm gonna go on a speculation, but I would imagine it's always outside because, just because of like lack of, and probably further away, lack of, you know, embalming techniques and things like that at the time, it'd be pretty rough that happening in your house. Even buried. Even buried, yeah. Well, that's the whole guess is coming up from cemeteries and things like that. You know, it's like the fog being like, you know, vampires or whatever. It's like, you know, that, and depending on the, you know, different, slight different cultures, it would like, you might even let like, like some people, and this also then led, probably led to this, like the fear of being buried alive or the, which I guess we can talk a little bit about, the bells, you know, that you could ring if you were buried alive. And then other people having fear of being buried alive, they put them into like more of like a mausoleum type area until it was known that they were definitely, definitely dead. And then they would bury them. So it'd give them like, you know, a couple of weeks or something, I guess. I would never, isn't that like, but yeah, it's, but I think it's always like, I don't, I would not know. I mean, the closest thing would be like something like catacombs, which would be like an underground, under like a city type of thing. Yeah. You know, I think the-
Baba: And cities have smells of their own kind of. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
MM: Kind of blended. Originally, you'll probably, you probably know it from like Lord of the Rings or from like the video game Skyrim, but you have the, the Dwager, it's like a Nordic. Both could be a spirit, but it also is usually a spirit that's inhabiting a body, but they're, and they're in the, like, so in Tolkien, that's the inspiration for like the Barrow weights in Lord of the Rings. And it's like, so they're in these, like the, the Barrows are like the burial mounds, you know, like that's, you know, that's pretty common in, you know, like the kind of Western European, you know, kind of stuff, usually for people that are more royal, you know, type of thing, you know, that's a, and, or like warrior graves and stuff. And so like, but they would be like isolated to that. They won't leave there. It's more of like, you come in there, then they'll get you. So like in Skyrim, you know, like, I don't know, you guys are, but that's like, you, you spend a lot of time going down through ancient burial things and there's lots of these guys attacking you and you have to put, but once you kill the, the thing, like it'll stop the spirits, you know, so you can stop them from, you know, attacking you, but that kind of falls more into that zombie thing, but it's not, but they're not really, they're just like, but they won't leave the site. But that's like that weird, like curse tomb thing. The ancient Egyptian mummy curse thing is definitely more of like a 19th, 20th century European explorers, mostly getting popular during the whole Tutankhamen unearthing. And that's like the similar thing, like, but the mummies curse isn't usually like, the mummy's gonna get you. It's usually like, you, the spirit somehow gets you, you know, after the fact, right? But it's like, but again, it's not really like, it doesn't seem to be like in coordination with like the actual Egyptian beliefs. That's more like something these other people brought and got popular. I think there isn't even an actual curse, like in description, which they're not really cursed about warnings to not disturb the tomb. I don't even think there actually is one on Tutankhamen's tomb. Dan, you might know a little more about that because I think you've done a bit of research on that, but like it's, yeah.
Danny C: I don't know if there's actual ever a warning. I don't remember, but I do remember a bunch of people died afterwards. It was all attributed to like, I think it was like fungus or something that was in the tomb itself, but you know, spores people inhaled or whatever. Cover up.
MM: But it's like, yeah, it doesn't seem to be like that. The curse thing was seemingly something that, you know, other people brought to this, you know, that wasn't really, doesn't seem to be in the Egyptian kind of belief system.
Danny C: I wonder if the tomb come in curse. I wonder if that more laid the way to like warnings of other tombs. I wonder if that's kind of like, there might be curse, like don't
Baba: disrupt them, you know? So it's interesting. So the idea of like the cursed tomb or the cursed treasure goes back a ways because it's actually one of the most popular things in when we talked about the Necronomicon, the grimoire tradition. There's always these things for getting rid of the ghost that's guarding the treasure. And there are these like treasure hunting spirits and like treasure hunting spells and things like that. And the reason is because if you think about like, when that's happening, like, you know, I guess like just like, I don't know, post feudal middle ages, things like that, how much class mobility did you have? Like, it's like, there are lots of lottery spells, like because like, how much class mobility did you have other than finding a bunch of treasure? Yeah, and so people would go out looking for treasure.
MM: Assuming someone didn't just confiscate it from, what's your plan?
Baba: Exactly, yeah. Find treasure and you've probably hired your own well-armed party and make sure they, actually, maybe they shouldn't be that, look, it's beyond my ability to actually recommend what to do about this. But what I can tell you is that there used to be this belief around treasure being guarded by ghosts and evil spirits to protect it from, would be a gripper uppers, grabbers, thieves and the like.
Danny C: I need to do a quick, like shameless plug for a second. So the other podcasts I have time to discuss, I actually spoke to a guy, Charles Breakfield, who actually tells a story of a modern day treasure hunt. So if anyone is interested in hearing about a really fun story about modern day treasure hunt, the podcast, Time We Discuss, it was episode 74, dropped in, I think it was November of 2024.
Baba: Complete with a, can you trust these guys? Kind of element if I'm not mistaken. Oh man, I was gonna go on a pirate tangent, but let's not, let's tangent right back into graves again. Well, not get into graves, but let's, yeah.
MM: So, I mean, there are, like, I'll address it again, these like most of the, I think most of the hunting ideas of graves do like, at least from what I can understand, like graves or cemeteries are like definitely more like modern kind of things. So even if they're based on an old ghost, so there's this one in Scotland that's like, it's like bloody, bloody McKenzie or whatever. And it's like, it's a person who died in like the 17th century and supposedly haunts that because he like killed a lot of and tortured a lot of people for religious, like he was a kind of prosecutor and person for religious stuff. So he has this kind of figure, but like most of the hauntings there seem to stem from like the 90s, this like popular, I made it into articles, like, you know, in that time, like, like they attacked people, it's like a poltergeist that attacked people. And then you just said, that's, you know, this ghost of this terrible person, but again, it's like that or like there's, going back to like Paris, the cemetery there supposed to like, you know, where George, Jim Morrison is buried supposedly he's haunting that or like, you know, or possibly a grown home, especially haunting the cemetery in Baltimore, you know, it's like, but it's kind of like, boy, again, most of these people died, except for obviously the status person like, you know, in the 19th or 20th century. And like most of these like centered around hauntings, you know, it's like, or like, there's like, you know, it's just like, there's, it's definitely feels like it's much more of like, ghosts are there, it's modern. And it's like more of like that disassociation when we stopped like, like, Chris, we start getting more afraid of this kind of thing, it's less common to be around stuff you're not, you know, and then there's like, you know, you're just, it's like, then now cemeteries are scary. And, you know, it's like,
Baba: So now it's time to make it weird and creepy. Sure. All right, so one explanation is that we just think cemeteries are scary because we've become uncomfortable with death in our modern world. We're very protected from it. And so it's like really alien to us. Or did becoming alienated from death in our modern world increase the number of hauntings because of creating restless dead?
MM: I don't know. You mean like, yes, is that unconsecrated burial stuff? Or is that more?
Baba: Or is it living shallow lives unincorporated with the spirit world? I don't know. But you know, it's kind of an idea like, I'll have to watch my terms so we don't get knocked on this, but like, so when it comes to like more, like there's the notion of alienated labor and you're doing these jobs, you're part of this assembly process. You don't have pride in your work because you just staple in the tongue on the Nike shoe now or whatever, instead of, you know, making a shoe as a cobbler, you know, you do a part and you don't have anything to own from it. And so you feel, It's going to wooden shoe territory? Well, no, no, it's good. All of these things should. That's advice I can give. Your shoe size as a wooden shoe is your, that's your problem. But just enough to do the job. So this alienated labor and where we've got this machine life where we're divorced from the spiritual and we're just living these things unsatisfied. Does that create the conditions for restless dead? You know, if you didn't have a life that you felt was meaningful because of all the modernization, I'm haunting this again, because I don't want, I'm not satisfied with the graveyards are just creepy because we're not used to them. But so what if graveyards are more haunted now and I'm going to even go back even further now and talk about graveyard magic because there's a lot of stuff around taking the dust from a grave and using it in a spell or so getting into necromancy and the graveyard. Well, there you go. I just opened some cans of worms and then just strolled away from them.
Danny C: We got a lot of different directions here. So let's hang on the cemetery dirt for a second. So I don't know if you know the answer to this, but what types of magic would you use that for? Is it strictly for things related to the dead? Is it like all over the place? You know, what would you actually use that for?
Baba: So there are a couple of things. You can use it for, to ask the dead for a favor. You're basically asking them for, you know, some kind of intervention. And the other idea is also that it's just dirt from graves is basically cursed. Like it's basically like you use it for cursing people and things like that. Sometimes like death magic, like you're trying to do somebody in with magic, you know, might involve things like, like graveyard dirt or things of the dead. But yeah, like, but it's not always something spooky. So for instance, well, I mean, magic might, people might think it's kind of spooky anyway. I think it's cool. The dust from St. Martin de Tours. So dust from certain graves of like saints and things like that can be used for good things by asking for, it's like a magic powder now for getting the intercession of St. Martin de Tours in your world. Or if you think about, okay, now we're gonna go back into Rome again for a second. Relics, like pieces of saints is big Catholic thing, right? So pieces of saints or their clothes or things they touched or you have different orders of relics. Like there's like top tier is basically like a piece of their body. And then it's like a piece of their clothes. And then it's like something that touched their clothes or body, you know, and it goes on and based. So you had this thing going on. It was like these, basically this competition between European cities on the rise about who could get relics of different things because it would attract people to those cities to the point that I can't remember which saint it was but like two European cities, like one of them stole the body from another and took it to another city. And like it's craziness, but it's, so you've got, as you've got the rise of the cult of saints as it's called, not a pejorative term but just like this belief structure around saints and the power of saints to do things. Saintly tombs rose up in prominence as special place of power. Maybe that has an influence on how we treated the other tombs because going back to early Rome, early sainthood was basically any dead Christian was a saint.
MM: The martyrdom, yeah.
Baba: Yeah, and it was like anyone that had passed on whether martyred and actually even those that died of natural causes, which were, it was a mix. What counter does that then? Because your lifespan might be kind of short as a Christian in early Rome. But one of the reasons may have been the violation of the taboo around the dead because in Rome, you did kind of keep things sequestered.
MM: Well, yeah, I mean, Richard Yay didn't want to disturb of people's ritual burials.
Baba: So you had these weird Christian people running around in the early years of the common era with a hand from a dead body or things like that going on. Yeah, like guess what? Those folks felt very out of sync with regular Roman society. They had a pretty pronounced taboo against that kind of thing. So to what extent did issues against the Christians have to do with them doing this weird stuff? That's an issue for religious scholars to debate. But it was a thing that was going on and probably influenced because a lot of the magic around the saints and things like that influenced later magic in our stuff. And so to what extent did the treatment of how saint tombs and things were being treated, did that raise up the level of the mystical property or the magical property around tombs and graveyards? So unanswered question, although there are people that have speculated on it, but well, at least on the saint end of things, but yeah.
Danny C: Do either of you know how, I'm gonna say disposing of the dead, for lack of better words, how has that progressed over thousands of years? Did they initially burn bodies and then led to eventually, and that's all about the common person, not necessarily kings or whatever. Do you guys know how that progressed over a long period of time?
MM: There's like neolithic era burial sites. So we've been doing this for a while. I don't know how much is the common. I imagine it was probably similar. It was just that, why those were more undisturbed maybe is probably due to the prominence or even like legends of some rest of spirit Thanksgiving people away. So it's like, so that's pretty far back that we've been doing some kind of ritualistic kind of thing. And then probably varies from culture to culture. Like some think like more of like a cremation thing, like you need to burn all of the bones so the spirits will be free. But since it's like, yeah, but I feel like it's like ancient enough. And I mean, I think even in Egypt, you might not have like a pyramid, but there were definitely tombs for more common people or just slightly, and the more hierarchical in society, you got obviously the better your tomb, but that's not even a different than modern, I'll say modern cemeteries like the last 200 years. I mean, like the prominent families have giant mausoleums or like big monuments, like obelisks oddly enough in a lot of cemeteries from a certain, even in the United States, there's sometimes if you're president, you get a really big obelisk. (Laughs) Not that George Washington is buried in the Washington body, but still like these kind of, there's probably a hierarchical order, but yeah, it's a, I mean, ritualistic burial, like whether it's like stones, you know, mounds, like that might not be dug deep or like, these kinds of, kind of like bound sites that we've built, it's like, it is pretty long standing, so it's not a, it's like, so it must have been like, it's a belief it seems to be ingrained in us for, quite some time, so yeah.
Baba: Well, yeah, and again, diving into the, into the ancient world and the magic world, I mean, like that you've got like the story of Antigone, and Antigone has to bury her brother, who's an enemy of the state basically, and so she buries him once and then they unbury him, and she does it a second time, which technically was not required. Once you've buried them once, you're kind of okay, but she was kind of making a point, and so, but you've also got a spell from the, the Greek magical papyri, the headless rite, and it refers to this idea of, I am, I am the the the headless spirit, with the headless demon with sight for feet, with sight in the feet, the idea that like you can see under the ground, you can see the spirits under the ground. So it's kind of this idea of, this entrenched kind of, that's where the spirits go when you die, Tartarus, the same kind of idea of like these like underground places of, it just seems like long, it seems pretty long established in our psyche, our collective psyche, it's a.
Danny C: What about like going to visit the dead? So a lot of times it was very common for people to go to the cemetery, they bring like flowers, on the person's birthday, maybe their parents' anniversary or something like that, you bring flowers, you put it by the headstone or whatever, at least in the States, it's very common. How far back does that tradition go? Does anyone know? Because I'm thinking right now, I can't remember who said it in the beginning, but talking about like, it was a public park, people sometimes picnic there. My first thought was like, did you go deliver the flowers and have a picnic afterwards? Does everyone know how far back that tradition goes of visiting the deceased in the cemetery?
MM: Yeah, I don't know. I mean, I imagine it's like, like even something similar Chris said, like it's like visiting, there's obviously rituals around visiting like saints' tunes and things like that or different, like you were talking about the kind of Christian martyr, stuff, I mean, like that tradition goes back to like in Rome, like that goes back pretty long time, going down and having essentially like rituals and things at particular tombs and revisiting them different times of year, or whatever, when that was like, particular thing was necessary. Obviously, like things like Day of Dead and stuff like pretty long standing tradition of going back and honoring your ancestor. So I imagine like ancestor worship is like fairly common. So I think that that's probably like somewhat of an extension of it. I mean, I feel like we don't do it now as like ritualistically in the same way. It's usually like ritual is like the actual funeral rites. And then after that, it's like up to you to like do that. But I mean, there's also the tradition of people that like go and, you know, the pull flags on soldiers graves and they do that and people will volunteer to do that. You know, so I mean, like there's like, so I imagine, and then you go back to like, probably people will visit it like their, you know, if their family's cemetery is basically on their land or in their church, every time you went to church, you know, the cemetery, something, you know, it's like, it's like the, because the graveyard is literally the yard of the church versus like the cemetery being like a separate thing, like out in the, you know, further, you know, pushed afar from the church. So yeah. So yeah, imagine like, it's like, you know, it's that kind of like, you know, budget has to be like at least fairly old, you know, or at least rooted maybe in that tradition of like, specifically visiting kind of, you know, holiday type feast day type things.
Baba: Yeah, it seems like we've probably had like these like crests and troughs as far as like how we've like done this kind of thing. Cause like, well, ancestor worship was probably like fairly common when it comes to like tribal life. As you get more into out of the world of villages and into the world of cities, you know, when you get into the time of like the agricultural revolution and things like that, you start to have this bigger thing going on and this more larger population. And so I wonder, and you've got more quote unquote organized religion. So I wonder how much the focus shifts away from, because what like Osiris is the king here and the king on the other side, you know, and so it's kind of like, so there's one dead person to worship, you know, and it's not your uncle or your grandfather or whatever. It's Osiris, it's the king, you know, and so, you know, speaking as a non Egyptologist who has my own understanding of how it all went, you know, Or
MM: Hades or like the death gods, I guess, in that sense, the decept.
Baba: Yeah, but to the point that like your, the worship of the ancestors shifted away into a state religion or something like that, I think you start to then have this like weird hierarchy of spirits, you know, where you don't, so I guess what I'm saying is kind of like, you probably have this point where there's like a very intimate relationship with the spirits of the dead, you know, and then it sort of takes a dip because it's more of a state thing and then it's kind of like a back and forth thing as we go through time because like that, okay, so you've got, I mean, obviously ancient Egypt was before the common era, so it predated Christianity and predated that particular movement of the saints and the cult of the saints, which is another kind of personalization of the dead, of our interaction and worship of the dead, you know, if in fact any of it went away, you know, because maybe as a family practice, it didn't. So, I mean, like in our house, we have a family practice of like pouring tea for the dead, you know, but most people don't do that anymore, but they might light a candle for the dead at the church. It's kind of a different kind of offering for the dead, you know, or a man, do a mass, they'll have a mass card for the deceased or whatever. Now I'm going into Christian traditions just cause that's largely what a lot of the, at least the American model is based on, so.
Danny C: I thought about this fun concept earlier. So we were talking about different cities that are known for different hauntings, like Edgar Allan Poe in, what was it, Paris? Is that what you said?
MM: No, Baltimore. Baltimore, right. It's very Grouppos, dirt buried, yes.
Baba: Jim Morrison.
MM: Yeah, Jim Morrison's buried in Paris, yes.
Danny C: Let's stick with Edgar Allan Poe in Baltimore, for instance. But I had this fun thought and I gotta believe that this happens at least some of the time because I'm very jaded in this way. Imagine a world where, you know, people just start that as a marketing gimmick, you know, as an attempt to increase tourism, you know, and then you have these people come in and it's like, oh yeah, Edgar Allan Poe, he haunts this building or the cemetery or whatever. But then I thought about taking it a step further, I said to myself, in this time we've been talking. I thought about the concept of the placebo effect, you know, where, everyone knows what the placebo effect is.
Baba: Yeah, yeah.
Danny C: But the idea where you can then start to, make things happen based on your beliefs as in like the placebo effect. And then I started to think about the idea of, and Baba, you probably both know what this is called, I came up off the top of my head, but the idea where you can, you believe something so much that you manifest it, that you make it happen, there's a term for that. I forget what that's called.
MM: Yeah, yeah, it's like self-fulfilling prophecy. Prophecy.
Danny C: Not that it has a different name, but that's okay. But then I thought about this idea, what if like people actually believe it so much because they go in and it's like, they're all like hyped up on like Edgar Allan Poe haunting, you know, this part of Baltimore, and then something weird happens, then they tell their story and it's completely unrelated, you know, it could just be like a coincidence or something. The story spreads, more people believe it, but then like they end up creating a real thing that actually does a quote unquote haunting. And I wish for the life, I could remember that term on that. Yeah, yeah.
MM: I'm gonna go back real quick. So it was like, yeah, I mean, like so they basically manifested it or something into the
Baba: existing-- It created kind of like an agrigor or something. Yeah, I mean, so, and again, like speaking, stepping out of the world of the material and into the world of these things can happen, you know, and it's, yeah, the idea that like you sort of like feed into this like thought form kind of-- That's it, thought form. Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah. And so you kind of feed into this idea and then it's often imagined as like, you're putting energy into it and other people come along and they can sort of tap into that energy that creates more of an effect. So you've got the story of, oh, I don't know. Let's go back to, I don't know, Bloody Mary. Okay, so you've got this story of Bloody Mary and people are like feeding into it. And then is there something metaphysical? Is there a metaphysical energy that you can tap into to produce effects in the world, like poltergeist effects and things like that? My personal take on it is, yeah, I kind of think so. I think there's something about plugging story.
MM: Something about Bloody Mary? Something about Bloody Mary. (Laughing)
Danny C: Thumb stock.
Baba: Yeah, somebody's gotta do like a parody, like the hair thing, but like Bloody Mary somehow. Anyway, so yeah, there's something about Bloody Mary. The, I forgot to ask about that. (Laughing) Oh, a story, you plug things into story and if you plug them into it, does it give them more power? I kind of think it does. Like I got, okay, and one of the things I'll go back to saints for, oh, here we go. All right, so that is Saint Christopher. He's got a dog head.
MM: You can't see Christopher showing his Saint Christopher medal.
Baba: I've got a Saint Christopher medal and Saint Christopher has a dog head. And the reason is, because Saint Christopher does have a dog head. Obviously. Because at the time, there were some people promoting the idea that there were actually a group of people that did have dog heads. And he was from that group of people. And there's actually a statue, I believe it's at the Vatican, going back to Rome again, of Saint Christopher with a straight up dog head, the head of a dog. And so Saint Christopher might not have existed. Can you get a miracle from a saint that never existed? And so it turns out that like, so you've got all these saints that are technically saints. And in order for a saint to be a saint, you've got these miracles that are attributed to them for canonization. And then later on, some of them turn out to not have existed. And so how does that work? Well, if you're a total skeptic, you'd say, well, because it's all BS from the beginning. But you could say, well, there might actually be something about story that lends to an entity's ability to do something. And so you'll actually have this tradition. Now I got to shut this down because I'll just go on forever. Yeah, I mean, you have this tradition of reminding spirits that they did things for you in the past, and therefore they should do it in the future, kind of thing. And it shows up in Catholic prayers, like the memorari. You remind Mary that she did good things in the past and should continue to do that. You know, so anyway, there we go.
MM: Jumping back to like, Dan Zammelti, sort of like the, I guess, like the tourist trap element of the, you know, the cemetery. It's like, there's, that, it's interesting because it's like, that is a weird kind of thing of like, I guess there's like something like, it's like a safe space in a weird sense because nothing usually happens technically in cemeteries, but it's a safe space where something creepy might happen. Like, you know, like, so there's that whole like, you know, like legend tripping, like the idea of like, well, I mean, just like, you know, like, I dare you to walk home through the cemetery, you know, when you're walking home at night or like something like that, or teenagers going and doing, you know, things hanging out in cemeteries, like, even though, you know, people don't do it as much, they'd be like, you know, in the same way, but it's like, that's like, it's a creepy spot where it's like, people aren't going to be around. And as long as it's not, you know, I guess nowadays, a lot of cemeteries are privatized land, you know, it's like, it's commercially owned. So you're not allowed to just wander in there, but it like, but if you happen to live in a city or a town that has, you know, has a cemetery like that, like an old cemetery, you kind of just kind of wander through it. My grade school and high school happened to like be in, you know, a town that like had, you know, first of all, my high school was fairly old and, you know, and somewhat like people often associate with hauntings, but we had a, the church nearby that had an old cemetery. And we would sometimes go there, even like sometimes on like trips out. Like I remember going like, you know, for like art class in like middle school, you know, and people did like grave rubbings and stuff. And like, and when we had free time in high school.
Baba: Not to be confused with grave robbings, which is not the grade school.
MM: No, no, no, no, no. I mean, that could be a grade school activity as long as it's properly chaperoned. But we would do that. Yeah. And it was like, you know, kind of things or like, you know, I remember one time having to, like we were allowed to like in high school, we were allowed to go out, like just, you know, we could go into town because it was like close, you go walking, you know, this walkable. And there's like, you know, shops and things. And it was during like a, like a finals week and the fastest way back was to cut through the cemetery. And it's like, but it was like this kind of like, also like dare, like, well, do you really want to start running down and cutting through the cemetery and like, you know, it's like, there's this whole like kind of like, you know, oh, well that's like, you know, it's like, is it creepy or is it like, you know, just that, that I don't know, it has that kind of like, not as much like the tourist trap thing, but that like kind of teenage dare going to the creepy cemetery. You know, it's like, there's that. Or, interesting that too, that the like, just, this is another thing you had mentioned about that, you know, obviously the Christians hanging out in the things like how, like catacombs being used as like centers of resistance. So whether it's like the Christian, you know, martyrs to, you know, and the early Christians in like some kind of being persecuted in, inside of Rome, you know, and, or like, like the French resistance using the Paris catacombs during World War II, you know, hiding out in tunnels. Yeah, there was a thing I saw that was like, even somewhere in like, like the early aughts, they, the Parisian police actually found down in the catacombs, like people had set up like a movie theater and a bar and all this stuff. It was like an underground, literally underground, like, like kind of movie theater, speakeasy kind of thing where they would, yes, they were showing like old noir films and stuff. Yeah, it was like, had a big projection screen and chairs and a fully stocked bar.
Baba: In other news, the Parisian police had some reason to wander down into the catacombs.
MM: Catacombs, yeah. I imagine like, you know, if you mean, you know, whether you're a common criminal or a phantom of the opera, you know, you're probably, that you might be spending time down there. Doing nefarious things, you know, it's dropping chandeliers on people then running to the catacombs.
Baba: And just to do it again, France has a recorded history of diabolism, dark magic. I'll stay away from it for now. Here we go, folks. Let's talk about commercialism here. If you can have a site haunted by any ghost for personal profit, your choice. Danny C, let's start with you because you're the one that, you know, you win here first, so.
Danny C: Oh, man, that's a tough one. That is such a tough one.
MM: Like is it the site itself or is it like a ghost? You pick the ghost.
Baba: I think you pick the ghost. Okay. Because that would be like.
Danny C: My first go-to, and I feel like it's very cliche, but my first thought was Houdini. Because I feel like then it's, you can ask Houdini to do anything because he was a magician, even in depth, he can do whatever, which might work out to be a disadvantage to me if people are asking it to do all kinds of things that I can't make happen. Yeah, yeah. But then my second thought would be like some kind of notorious gangster. Then I thought Al Capone. And I think he's already allegedly haunts, but I'm not entirely sure. I don't remember when I went to Alcatraz. I can't remember if that was true or not. So that would be my thing. I think probably someone that has kind of a shady past, someone like that, I think that would be kind of interesting.
Baba: Bill, what do you think?
MM: Yeah. There's a good draw. Since we're living in America, I'd probably pick like the first one. I think it's a good draw. If you're living in America, I'd probably pick like some kind of one. If it was about profitability thing, like, you know, if you actually could make like the Lincoln Memorial actually haunted and like the statue moved, and it was Abraham Lincoln, because people would like already want to go there anyway, you know, and if it's like, well, on this day, we can charge a little extra. (Laughing)
Danny C: I need to interject for just one second. This funny idea, I was talking to my father about this probably like six months ago. Back when, I don't think it's really big right now, but for the longest time, it was like, alien disclosure is gonna happen, you know? And I said to my father, I said, what the government needs to do is say like, yes, we do have a flying saucer and it's in this hangar. You can come see it, but it's gonna cost you. And no cameras are allowed, no nothing. And I said, they could make a boatload of money. People flocking to see this thing. Whether it's true or not doesn't matter. They can wipe out the deficit like that.
Baba: Never stopped disinformation before. Truth has never gotten in the way of disinformation before.
Danny C: So it's not like making money off of like, you know, hoaxing kinds of things. I just thought I had to share. So I'm sorry, Bill continue.
MM: That was it, that was my, I thought I really like it, I just, I don't know. All right, Chris.
Baba: I know, I prompted the question. I don't even know who mine might be. Yeah, it's all right. You know, that's a good question. I'll have to think about that. (Laughs) Blackbeard, some kind of pirate.
MM: Blackbeard probably is haunting, you know, down in like Ocracoke or something like that.
Baba: You know, it's a-- He's like, I wanna be-- That's a hard place to get to. Are there any famous ghosts in Philly that should be in Philly that aren't Edgar Allen Poe?
MM: Well, Edgar Allen Poe is in Baltimore, technically. That's where he's buried. He was in Philly too, wasn't he? Yeah, but he was buried in Baltimore. That's why, it's a--
Danny C: I could be wrong. I think that Betsy Ross House is allegedly haunted, but I don't know if it's like by Betsy Ross or someone else or if I'm making that up completely. I don't remember, but I vaguely remember hearing or seeing something about that.
MM: Well, I mean, also too, like, I mean, I'm sure there's lots of haunted stuff. I mean, technically the whole like over on Hogg Island, the old Revolutionary War barracks is supposedly like haunted and you know, but Benjamin Franklin doesn't seem like a person who hangs around it. He probably would rather be haunting like Paris or something, you know, where there's more ghosts, you know, to hang out with. He liked it there better, seemingly. So he would probably-- I think
Danny C: we're at a bar for some reason. I don't know why, just like hanging out like a big tachyon of whatever.
MM: Yeah, it's like, we don't have a good, we don't have a good like creepy ghost. We don't have a good like phantom type thing, I'm sure. Well, I mean, we have Headless Horsemen. I mean, I guess that's kind of a, you know, that's kind of a good American style, you know, creep ghost, you know, it's like, technically he was a Hessian soldier, I guess, like supposedly so--
Danny C: Hang on that for a second. So Sleepy Hollow, I believe actually does exist in New York if I remember correctly. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I wonder, and I'm assuming they probably have, if they're smart, they've done this, embraced this story and like made it all kinds of a touristy trap, which has grown.
MM: I'm sure that, I mean, I would almost be, without having looked that up, I'd be 100, I'd put money that that's, I'm sure they do. There's, it's like Salem and having like, which, you know, festivals and things like that, you know, it's like, and having become a center of things.
Baba: All right, I changed my answer then. My answer is Headless Horsemen. And I just want the spirit itself, I will license it out to Sleepy Hollow. And if they don't like it, I will cause their entire tourism trap to collapse by actually releasing him into the--
MM: Even though it was just a coverup for the murder of Ichabod Crane by Brombooms, right? (Laughing)
Danny C: It's not a fair question, this is accurate. Copyright law, I'm pretty sure that's public domain. I remember when it was created.
MM: I was there a long time ago. Yes, yes, it's Washington Irving. It's typed in the first American horror, like official, like written horror story, you know, kind of thing. So yeah, yeah, it's definitely public domain.
Baba: And actually the, what's his name? Take on Sleepy Hollow with Christina Ricci and Johnny Depp and--
MM: Oh, Tim Burton's, I think.
Baba: Yeah, now in that one-- Christopher Walker. If you all haven't checked it out yet, cover your ears or eyes or whatever. I don't want to ruin an old-- It's like 20 something years old. Yeah, like a 25 year old movie. Well, they summon the Headless Horsemen. The Headless Horsemen is a summoned spirit that's called Buntz of Fit. They actually use witchcraft. They actually have his head and use that as a way to control him. Yeah, so that's a, so actually this idea of having a spirit and making money off it might not be that original.
MM: Yeah. Yeah, like disturbing a burial site is, there you go, to, you know.
Baba: So how do we wrap this around?
MM: Okay, yeah, let's, let's, let's, so we just do a quick ranking on, you know, just, let's just do, let's talk about like, just like the idea of the cemetery potentially haunted or not, let's give it a quick ranking. I'll go first. So, recognition, obviously the cemeteries are older than, going back to at least, you know, original burial, Neolithic times, we pretty much go. Obviously the modern cemetery, that's not the graveyard is more, you know, Victorian, or, you know, like that, it's starting more than, you know, and like, it's like, so that's a, but still it's, it's pretty, we, everyone knows what it is. We can think of it in our mind's eye, cemetery. So good for that. Scary factor. I think just like, we, like, yes, it is scary because like, we've been culturally conditioned to it being scary. We're, we're of the era where cemeteries are creepy now, like, and don't go there. And, you know, like even when it's daytime and it's not like, you know, because it's like, it is, it's like, whether it's haunted or not, I guess the idea to us seems creepy because it's just so much in the cultural, I guess, miasma or whatever, like that, we think of it as being a creepy place, you know, there's enough of our horror stories and things based around it. It's a trope in and of itself, the cemetery, something's gonna happen, right? Um, yeah. Now, like, let's go say haunting is real or something like that. I'll do a double caveat. Do you wanna be in a cemetery, let's say, like a night by myself? No, that would be weird. And also probably not as fun if you were like, if it was to go for a purpose of being there and it's a creepy thing, I don't think I would personally wanna do that even now as an adult, not thinking that cemeteries are haunted. Now, if we take the idea that cemeteries are haunted, like, let's just say that is in fact true. Do I want to go to a haunted cemetery by myself? No. (Laughs) Maybe on a tour for a tourist trap, sure. But yeah, like a ghost tour, you know, like what, you know, former goth, the kind of kid would want to go on a ghost tour. You know, it's a, sure. Yeah, so, but yeah, so I'm gonna give it a, I'm gonna, so as a creepy factor down the middle, I'm gonna give it a two and a half monster for the haunted cemetery, you know? Like, I think it's like, I think it's a, yeah, it's just, it's a--
Baba: Is the half monster that you give it the top half or the bottom half?
MM: Well, it's the bottom half for the headless. Oh, yeah. Two headed and one headless.
Danny C: Here's the other half for the monster to summon the rest of it.
MM: Yeah. And then we get up the creepy factor after that. That was like, but you know, so Dan, I'll kick it off to you.
Danny C: All right, recognition, I feel like that, you know, cemeteries go back way, way, way, as we've already discussed. Everyone knows what they are, so no surprises there. Scary, I don't think they're overly scary. I've actually, I remember I went to this one, like super old cemetery when I was in college and actually took some pictures hoping to like, see something after the film got, wait for it, developed. But nothing, nothing came of it. I would be more scared at night. I'd be more scared of like, nefarious real people being there. I'd be more afraid of like, running into a group of people and like, you know, getting attacked essentially. I'm more scared of that than like, stumbling across a ghost in a graveyard. Which is, which kind of goes against what I normally say. Cause normally, you know, me, I'm like, well, I'm open to the possibility, but I think, I don't know, I think it's kind of, I think specifically in a graveyard, it's too cliche for me. And then sticking with that kind of isn't real. Sure, you know, it could be real. You know, ghosts could be, you know, haunting graveyards. It could be haunting anywhere. But I mean, I don't know, it's kind of cliche. Do I want to encounter it? Again, don't really want to go into a cemetery because I'm more fearful of bumping into real people doing nefarious acts than a actual bumping into something that is of the paranormal nature. So all in all, I am actually going to give this a three monsters and a leg.
Baba: All right,
MM: three monsters and a leg. The leg is of the one that got chopped off from one of the roaming gangs and those.
Danny C: It might be a relic, I'm not sure. You know, maybe the three monsters stole a relic.
MM: Yeah, it's like, so it's not a nefarious 1980s gang defacing tombstones in a graveyard.
Baba: After a rocking session of Dungeons and Dragons. All right, so I'll hop on to this. Let's see. Recognition, I think we've beat this one. Yeah, we know what they are. So everybody kind of has a sense of it. It's nothing new, really not new. And so are they scary? It depends. I think they can be. I think, all right, so going back to the thought form idea. There's a vibe of people wandering around mourning the dead, you know? And I feel like some cemeteries have just that vibe, you know? And then some of them actually really ruined that vibe because like a strip mall is right across from the cemetery and like you got a fence, then you got a highway and then you got a strip mall right there. And it kind of like takes the magic out of it a little bit. Like, personally, I think you should plant trees all along the perimeter of your cemetery. So you don't look over and see like an old decommissioned pay less shoe store or something like that. But like, yeah, the, so I think the old cemeteries who are the well-kept ones, like the ones that kind of have that little bit of separation, I think they do kind of have like a creepy quality to them. At night, now, would I want to be in one at night? Maybe for like witchy purposes. Not necessarily cursing people, but I do think it would be like a cool thing. Not re-robbing again. No, no, no, no, no, I'm done. The young man's game. But the, I also would be wary about running into people in the cemetery at night though. That would probably be my bigger concern because I'd probably be there for the purpose of spirits and things. But mine would more be of the like gun toting law enforcement type, because they're around cemeteries sometimes at night, you know, and you're not supposed to be. So those consequences are real and I don't want those either. So, but yeah, I kind of like, I kind of wouldn't mind, like if me and Sharon bought and lived in an old church that had its own graveyard, I'd kind of like that actually. I think that'd be kind of cool. I'm not like the morbid type either, but like, I don't know. I think that'd be kind of cool. And I kind of would go there at night because I wouldn't have to worry about those folks.
Danny C: I'll interject for a second. One of the first houses we looked at across the street,
Danny C: there was a huge old, old cemetery.
Baba: Yeah. No, I kind of dig that, you know, but well, yeah. So do I think these things happen? Do I think they're really haunted cemeteries? I think there are fewer haunted cemeteries than people probably think, but I do think either from a thought form perspective of lots of people bringing their feelings about the dead and things that might create a ripe environment for weird things to happen. Also something that's removed from regular interaction with society can sometimes, I think, create a space for weird things to happen. And so, yeah, I think there's, all right, so overall monsters, I'm gonna give it, I'm gonna give it, I'm gonna give it three and a half monsters. And it's the upper half. Nice. Because it's still kind of there. It's kind of looking at you, you know?
Danny C: So this just came to me, finally, tulpa. That was the word I was looking for. Tulpa. Tulpa.
Baba: Which, yeah. And that is the same thing as a thought form, right? Essentially. So our understanding of tulpas is the westernized version of an eastern concept. But yeah, yeah, it's kind of the idea of you're creating like an artificial entity with your energy. But yeah, the tulpa, yeah, they got much more popular in the last 10 years or something like that. There's a lot of stuff out there on them. And all these warnings against them. Maybe a tulpa's a comfort, another-- Yeah, it's just like,
MM: something I think about spirits created from your mind, like where spirits created from mass, and the hallucination is that.
Baba: Yeah, well, and that goes back into can saints that never existed do things? Or yeah, like those are some ripe topics for some interesting exploration, maybe a little ways down the line. So why don't we hang it? Why don't we put this one to rest?
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