Episode Summary

You walk into an empty room, but you feel like you’re being watched. Pulling out your recorder, you start to ask questions, just in case. Maybe you don’t expect to hear anything. But a few hours later, when you listen back to the recording, you hear a voice that isn’t yours. Shivers run up your spine as you realize you were right. Someone, or something, else was in that room with you.

Our guest today is an expert on electronic voice phenomena, or EVPs. But her true ghost stories aren’t just about phantom voices. She’s been encountering strange things her whole life.

AI-generated transcript of this episode available upon request.

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About the Guest, Cyn Shrader Hill

We met Cyn, founder of Elk Valley Paranormal, through our mutual friend Miranda Young of Ghost Biker Explorations. Cyn of Lincoln County, TN, has caught some creepy EVPs on her many paranormal investigations with her own group and with Ghost Hunters of Southern Tennessee. You can hear some examples of her EVPs right now on her website. She is the author of several books, including Whispers in the Dark, Web Of Terror, They’re Speaking, Are You Listening? and It’s Not Goodbye: Signs from Beyond.

She often partners with her friend, Mark Elliott Fults, author of the book she mentioned on the program, The Darkest Corner: Necrophilia, necromancy, and the functioning of a working psychic. Cyn does public storytelling at Young Vintage Antiques in Fayetteville, TN, where you can apparently purchase some really good sage.

Keep updated on Facebook @ElkValleyParanormal.

Show notes

What is an EVP?

In this case, the acronym EVP stands for electronic voice phenomena (or Elk Valley Paranormal, in other cases). Sometimes, recording equipment will pick up something that sounds like a spoken word or phrase, when no audible words are being spoken in the room where the recording is taking place. Often these messages are too quiet to hear until you turn up the volume.

Are EVP real? Are these actual messages from another realm? Could they be the quiet voices of spirits, amplified by technology? Or are we just hearing what we want to hear within the white noise? After listening to Cyn’s EVP collection, we’re pretty convinced these are actual voices. But whose voices are they?

How to get a good electronic voice phenomenon recording

• Wondering what EVP questions to ask? Try asking direct, open ended questions, but not leading questions.
• If you know a name associated with the location, use it! Try asking if that person is present. Direct your question to that person, addressing them by name.
• Leave plenty of time after asking your question. Remember, you can’t hear an EVP in real time, so you just have to trust something might be happening and keep recording the silence.
• Eliminate sources of background noise, and make sure nobody is speaking in another room while you’re recording.
• Use reliable EVP technology; something that picks up very quiet sounds.
• If you’re using something that records onto physical medium, like a cassette tape, never reuse a tape. Old recordings may not be 100% gone after being dubbed over.

How to protect your empathic self

Cyn gave us some tips for empaths doing paranormal investigations.

• Countdown meditation.
• Opening and closing prayer.
• Always close any kind of questioning by saying goodbye, otherwise the door stays open.
• Essential oils: lavender for anxiety, peach for interrupting an anxious event.
• Crystals, which can be cleansed with moonlight or sage smoke.
• Smoke from burning sage creates a barrier for spirits and ill intent, which you can draw then step over.

Have you caught an electronic voice phenomenon on tape?

While there are many methods of audio communication with paranormal entities and spirits, EVPs are one of the classics. If you’ve got a good EVP from a haunted location, we want to hear it! Show and tell is every day on our Facebook group, because every day is a spooky day.

The post EVPs, Turkey Ghosts, and the Shape of a Haunted House appeared first on Homespun Haints.

Episode Summary:

Synchronicity refers to two or more events that seem to be related simultaneously occurring at the same time. And our guest today has had multiple, strange synchronicities happen in his life. Are these events merely coincidental, or is there something larger at play? Decide for yourself as we interview one of the original paranormal podcasters, Jim Harold.

AI-generated transcript of this episode available upon request.

Sponsored by The Smell of Fear Candles

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About the Guest, Jim Harold

Jim Harold is the creator of several podcasts, including The Paranormal Podcast, Jim Harold’s Campfire, Unpleasant Dreams, and You Won’t Believe What Happened To Me. And those are just the paranormal ones. Jim also has podcasts discussing true crime, classic TV shows, and relationships. He’s not exclusively into audio, either. Check out his YouTube channel, several books of true ghost stories, and even a true ghost story coloring book for grown-ups.

Show Notes

What is Serendipity?

Serendipity involves unexpectedly happening upon something of interest, relevance, or value, and having the wisdom to recognize that value within an entirely different context or application. You might be pondering a problem, and find the answer in the graffiti on a highway overpass, that you only witnessed because your normal route was under construction. Or you might, in the course of developing a new drug, accidentally get some in your mouth, and discover the next big artificial sweetener.

We notice serendipities because it’s part of human nature to search for patterns. We humans automatically notice patterns, even within randomness. In design, it’s nearly impossible to create a design that truly appears “random.” That’s because we are so good at identifying patterns and assigning meanings. Common phenomena like Blue Ford Syndrome and pareidolia remind us that most serendipities we notice are just noticeable because they are outliers within the normal chaos.

The word is fairly new, and based on a Persian fairy tale called The Three Princes of Serendip. This week, our Apple Premium and Patreon subscribers will get to hear Diana tell her own version of this out of print, oft-translated fable.

Serendipity vs. Synchronicity and their Relation to the Paranormal

Whereas serendipity is the ability to glean a relevant eureka moment from an unexpected source, synchronicity is more about timing. As my etymology peeps will appreciate, Chronos refers to Father Time, and the rest of the word, Syn+City refers to Las Vegas, NV. But although you and I know that truth, Psychology Today claims that synchronicity is a Jungian term. “Synchronicity, as an acausal connecting principle, suggests that the shared meaning between two low-probability events had something to do with explaining why they happened.”

Either term potentially implies that a coincidence is more than just a coincidence; synchronicity exclusively so. Serendipities usually result in objectively practical external outcomes, but their causality can be dismissed as coincidental. Synchronicities are, by definition, not mere coincidence. Synchronicities tend to have mainly subjective internal emotional intrigue. The events themselves may hold no inherent value or useful outcome. Rather, it is their connection which is relevant to the study of epistemological metaphysics.

One might say that serendipity is similar to receiving a mystical sign from the universe. But another might argue that the wonder of serendipity lies within the human ability to recognize the relevance of the serendipitous discovery from within in a completely irrelevant context. Synchronicity by necessity uses the simultaneous happening of rare events to imply a supernatural connection between the two.

What can you do with your haunted mirror?

This episode sparked a little debate between haunted mirror owners. If you find yourself in possession (no pun intended) of a cursed mirror, would you keep it? Or would you get rid of it? And how? If you’re in the “get rid of it” camp, it’s not a simple decision. Breaking it comes with bad luck. Burning glass doesn’t work so well. But selling it or giving it away involves inadvertently cursing someone else. Patrons will get a bonus this week of Becky and Diana’s best hot tips on how to get rid of a cursed mirror like the one in this episode without calamitous results.

Have you taken a paranormal cruise?

Is it anything like we imagined? NO??? Sounds like it’s time for us to start a Go Fund Me to buy a cruise ship. Let’s make this nightmare a reality.

Have you experienced a serendipity or synchronicity that bordered on supernatural?

We love the concept of synchronicity, and are fully open to believing that some serendipities are supernatural in nature. Tell us about your synchronicities by finding us on social using those buttons down at the bottom of the page. Or submit your story if you’d like to tell it in an episode. We appreciate you sharing so we can all have a spooky day!

The post Synchronicity Only Explains So Much appeared first on Homespun Haints.