A Witch's Perspective and Preparation for Ghosts and Hauntings

We start with the energy of the week with the new moon in Virgo. Our tarot of the week is the High Priestess. She points us toward quiet, stillness, and listening to our inner guide. I also pulled an oracle card from Morbid Mirror: Preparation for the Afterlife. Together these cards invite us to go within. Virgo season energy invites us into cleansing your home, decluttering, organizing your space, and resetting your routines. I share simple cleansing ideas you can actually do, from energetic clearing to getting your tools and environment aligned with your goals.

Then we get into the paranormal: what we mean by “ghosts” and “spirits,” why different cultures draw different lines, and the big difference between an imprint haunting that replays like a loop and an interactive spirit you might be able to communicate with. We also cover spiritual protection before and after haunted places, including prayers for protection, cord cutting, and cleansing options like herbs, sacred smoke, selenite, egg cleansing, and even holy water. 

I also what sensing the paranormal feels like in the body: cold or heat shifts, sudden emotion, racing heart, dizziness, words that pop into your mind, and other body cues that can signal activity. If you’re curious about tools, I talk tarot, pendulums, scrying, dowsing rods, and more, plus a personal story of an early ghost sighting that sent us straight to research for confirmation. If this conversation sparks something for you, subscribe, share it with a friend who loves ghost stories, and leave a review. What’s the most convincing paranormal moment you’ve ever had?

Transcript

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Cozy Welcome And Fall Vibes

SPEAKER_00 0:12

Hello, witches. Welcome to another cozy cub and chat. I am your hostess with the most this next to Elvira, Jenny C. Bell, and this is for the week of September 6th. And there's a lot to get into, but I do want to say that the main topic today is going to be ghosts and spirits and hauntings because that was a special request from someone in our coven. She is traveling to Europe and staying in a haunted hotel, and she wanted to know some things about basically ghosts and you know protection and things like that. So I thought it'd just be a fun podcast kind of chat anyway for this time of year, right? We're hoahoa season, it's fall almost, right? Here in where I'm at in the PNW. Oh my gosh, September 1st came with rain and fog and cooler weather, and it's just been like that the whole week. It's been absolutely so cozy. Got to wear like sweaters and have the windows open, been making lots of uh I made chili, I made soup, baking. It's just so nice. And I know it's not gonna last. It's usually pretty warm here until about Halloween. But we really desperately needed the rain. We hadn't really had rain in the summer, and it's so dry. So um, yeah, so that's the topic today. Um, but we'll get into all the other things, cards and all of that stuff. So um I will we will be talking about ghosts and paranormal experiences also on belief being and beyond at the end of the month for our round table. I'm super excited. Um if you watch me on Movie Coven, I am sometimes on there and I get to be on there sometimes with uh Richard Lale, who is a psychic medium and tells the absolute best stories, and he agreed to come on the show along with some other people. So very excited for that. Um let's dive into the cards and then the new moon, and then we will talk about ghosts.

Tarot Pulls And Weekly Theme

SPEAKER_00 2:25

Um, yeah, okay. So I pulled again from the Happy Halloween tarot and the morbid mirror. Also, both of those are from US Games, they're both from Sunny Graves. Um love them both, so highly recommend them. I'm not getting paid to say that. Always, you know, we all know I do some influency type things. I don't like the word influencer um at all, but I do kind of wear that hat sometimes, especially on TikTok. And I always tell people in our coven, if you see a video, especially on TikTok, I try I'm honest. Like there's times I'll be like saying the very bare minimum about something because I don't actually like it. Um, but if you're ever curious, you really want to know, ask me, would you spend your own money? Would you actually spend money and buy this yourself? And the answer for these two card decks is yes. Um Orbit Mirror was actually my number one anticipated deck for the year. Like when I looked at all the decks coming out through all the different publishers that I follow, I was most excited for that. And it has not disappointed me.

High Priestess And Quiet Intuition

SPEAKER_00 3:30

So we got High Priestess, and as I shared last week, why I like the Happy Halloween tarot is because Sunny Graves has these cool um journal questions, and we know I like journaling. So for the High Priestess, which is so cute, it's this little tattooed witch on a broom with a jack-o'-lantern moon, and she's just flying and looks so peaceful, and I don't know. I just love that she's just young and tattooed, but she has a lot of the symbols of the high priestess like on her. It's very clever. So how can I make space for quiet and stillness? Love that going into cooler weather, winding things down. Um, the equinox is on the 22nd this year, but depending on where you live, like where I'm at, it's feeling like fall. Like um, took a walk today, some of the leaves have already fallen off the trees, the squirrels are gathering acorns, like it feels like fall. How can I practice listening to my inner guide? You know, we all have intuition, we're all psychic. I'm a firm believer in that. We just at some point shut that off or stop listening, or we're taught to ignore those parts of ourselves, but it's there. In what ways am I innately connected to the universe? What is my gut telling me? Why will I or won't listen to it? And it's interesting we get the high priestess with the moon, the new moon in Virgo, um, because the high priestess is just like in her power, you know, in the original Pamela Coleman Smith drawing, she just looks so all-knowing and wise and kind. There's a kindness and a a stillness, there's a inner knowing about her. Like it's like almost like a Mona Lisa type smile situation with the High Priestess, right? Like she's got a little secret um that she's not exactly gonna tell you. And so, yeah, I think High Priestess Energy is so nice for the week. The August, August was rough, and for me personally, for a lot of people, and I'm already feeling like such a change when it became September. Um, I personally did like a on September 1st I did a release ritual. I went for a hike and I just spoke to the earth because I was all alone and was just saying all the things I didn't want to take with me from August, and I wanted to start fresh, and that was a really good ritual for me. Um so High Priestess is all about being in that power, but it's like this quiet, intuitive power, right? It's the it's the witch, it's the stereotype, the archetype of the witch, it's the all-knowing mother, it's you know the leader, but the spiritual leader. I love

Luck As Preparation And Readiness

SPEAKER_00 6:26

that. And then the other card from Morbid Morbid Mirror, it's one of the few cards with Egyptian imagery on it. It says preparation for the afterlife, and it's got the um the scales and the someone's heart with a feather, because that was the I haven't read the Book of the Dead in a long time. I actually took a class on the Egyptian Book of the Dead and was a teenager, like older teenager, um, from a friend who we would trade being witches and pagans, we would just like have a night where it's like, you teach me this, and then I'll teach this the next night. So she taught Egyptian Book of the Dead, and I remember learning from her that that was the idea is like if your heart was heavy with basically not sins, but bad things or evil doing, and it was heavier than the feather, then you didn't get to go to the afterlife. So this has the scale with the heart and the feather, it has a scarab uh beetle, and then there's wings around it. There's like an Anubis figure and another uh animal figure, and the number 64, and it says, When it comes to luck, you make your own. Luck is preparation, meeting opportunity. Which really is high priestess energy, too, right? Like she's the high priestess is the scholar, like she's studied, but she also has innate knowing, and then that wisdom and that knowledge come together to make a good decision. So I feel like this week is about some good luck possibly coming our way, um, good energy coming our way, and then us being ready for it in some way. So love that.

New Moon In Virgo Cleansing

SPEAKER_00 8:08

Okay, and then we have a new moon in Virgo. Virgo season. I love it. I love it. I love, I've already been cleaning, cleaned out my um closets and pantry, uh, refrigerator, been reorganizing, reorganized my bookshelves. Um it's just that back to school energy. Just really makes you want to get clean, get organized, declutter, get rid of stuff, donate stuff, recycle, all of that. It's just it's so good. Like even my desktop is decluttered right now, which normally it's not. So I love that. Um, and so new moon in Virgo is such fresh start energy. Like new moons are always fresh start, but Virgo is like so focused, so organized, so clean. This is a great new moon to cleanse your house if you haven't done that. Cleanse your yard, cleanse yourself, do like an ink cleanse on your body, um, put all your crystals out and give them a cleanse. Like it's a good time to reorganize your own craft cleansing and clearing energy. And then it's also a good time if you have not what started to wind down yet. If you're not in the fall wind down mode and you're still doing some last pushes for goals and manifestations for the year, this is a good moon for that because Virgo's really good energy for getting stuff done. So yeah, it's a good new moon for focusing and organizing. And then, oh, and this week on Belief Being and Beyond, we have Elise Wells, and we get to talk to her about um land spirits. She has a whole book about that, and so there'll be more on that on um on that on Belief Being and Beyond, and then also you can see that on my Instagram or also. And yeah, that's that.

What Ghosts Are And Why They Linger

SPEAKER_00 10:08

Now on to talking about ghosts, which is so perfect for um the season of the witch, right? So the question is she's basically staying in a famously haunted hotel, and she just wanted to know like how would I personally prepare? But we can talk about ghosts and spirits in general. So, first question or first thing that people often want to know is like what are they? Are they real and whatever? And why are they, why do you think they're real? And I don't have a full answer, I have some ideas. So I have seen ghosts, I have uh communicated with ghosts, I have had paranormal experiences, and before there were ghost hunting TV shows, I used to go out and do um ghost hunting with my friends, you know. Uh bringing like tape recorders and flashlights and doing all those things. And yeah, I have used a spirit board before. I do use tarot cards. I have had people who have passed away come through in readings. I don't consider myself a medium. I do think that I could hone those skills and really do that work, even though and I think it's needed and it's heavy work. Um, but I'm not in a place in my life where that's what I do. But it doesn't stop loved ones from coming through in regular readings for people. So ghosts to me, um, and we I like I use the term ghosts and spirits interchangeably. I remember when I taught um high school, middle school, I always would try to teach seasonally. So teaching English, I could talk about um Ed Graham Poe at this time, and I would often teach uh the story of La Llorona um because I had a lot of Mexican students, and my mentor teacher was Mexican, so she shared all that with me. And I remember when I asked, like it was a journal question, because we were gonna read, we might have been reading Hamlet in high school, and there's a ghost in that. And I had asked, uh, do you believe in ghosts and blah blah blah? And I had a student, she was a black student, and she's like, I don't believe in ghosts, but I believe in haints. And so different cultures they distinguish different things, right? So for her, a ghost was like Casper, something silly and stupid, but a haint was real. And so when I'm saying ghost spirits, I'm meaning a disembodied soul spirit of person, animal, something else. And so I just wanted to put that out there as a definition first. And then how or what are I have some different theories. I know that there's a common theory about imprints or like repetition of an imprint. So basically, like there is a sequence of a um a disembodied spirit that they replay over and over again. Like somehow it gets that sequence gets trapped in time and space and usually in one place. And it's like, okay, the ghost appears at the top of the stairs every day at midnight, and it's like a replay. And there's some different theories behind that, like clear quartz is a memory keeper, and there's theories that there's quartz, lots of quartz in a house, uh, foundation, like under the ground, that it'll keep records, and those kind of memories get replayed more often in places like that. Then, of course, there's theories that if something tragic happened, they there's like that trauma stays with the land, with the earth and with the home, and it gets replayed. Um, if you're an animist, you might believe in a house spirit. I definitely believe in a land in land spirits and spirits of the land. And so there's different ways, right? So we could have that kind of replay. We can have someone who passed away but uh didn't want to move on for whatever reason. And so they could be sticking around a person, they could be sticking around a piece of furniture, a piece of jewelry, a home, the land, right? And do I I kind of think that it's not the whole solar spirit that gets stuck, but just a part of it, because I think that can happen. So I think like part of them moves on, but part of them sticks around because everything's multidimensional, time is an illusion, and everything's multidimensional. So, you know, we we try to we think in a in a human mortal way, in a linear fashion, but that's not actually how like other realms work, especially when you cross the veil. It doesn't work that way. So, you know, I think like someone's mother could pass away and move on, but also stay with them and also maybe stay with their siblings and watch over them because now that she doesn't have a physical body, her spirit can be with her loved ones at any time, but also be wherever the afterlife is, right? And however you feel about that. So I think there's different kinds. There's like these kind of replay, these trapped kind of spirit memories. And I think those we can't really interact with, we just can bear witness to. And then I think there's actual like hauntings where spirits hang around and you can interact with them. So I think when we talk about spirits and ghosts, we have to think about like, you know, places haunted. Okay, what does that mean? Does it mean that this there's a loop that plays and you can just kind of see the loop? Or is there a like an active spirit that you can talk to, that you can interact with that is mu is changeable? Is and so that's one thing to consider. So there's that. Um, I think if you go to a place that's like known, haunted, right? So I went to the Whaley house uh with my family.

Protection Before And After Hauntings

SPEAKER_00 16:38

We all wear protective like jewelry anyway. Um, but we said prayers before we went and after. So we said uh prayers to Archangel Michael for protection before we went in to, you know, be safe and to um not have anything attached to us. I think it's really important to like ask to be protected, but also to make sure that nobody takes a ride or hitchhikes with you, right? And then when you're done, when you leave the haunted place, I think it's important to ask to cut cords, visualize cutting cords, clear your energy with the egg, with um herbs, with sacred smoke, with a selenite wand, however you want to do it. We happen to be the Willie House happens to be by a really nice church. So I took the family and we all took holy water and cleansed ourselves there. Um, because why not? Right? Holy water is for anybody. Um, and so I think that's like the best bet. So yeah, go and visit haunted places, take spiritual protection seriously, because a lot of us are more sensitive than we realize. And then when you get when you're done, make sure you cleanse your energy and set up those protections again. For the most part, in these kind of super famous haunted places, they're the ghosts don't want to leave. Like they're there because they're getting attention and interaction, and so they're not gonna want to come home with you. But it's always good just to make sure, right? It's kind of like in the haunted mansion ride, there's always that ghost at the end. That is my my absolute favorite ride at Disneyland. And um I'm not a like a Disney adult. But I really do like that ride, and I've loved going when it's like uh nightmare before Christmas themed. So cool. Anyway, but that's like the end of the ride, right? The ghost is in the seat with you. He's like, I'm coming with you. Uh, so that's kind of like our fear a lot of times, and what makes people not want to visit haunted places. Um, but for the most part, they're happy where they are. Now, just a real touch quickly on haunted items and haunted dolls. I think it's really important to

Haunted Objects Need Respect

SPEAKER_00 18:51

treat those things with reverence and kindness. People have negative reactions when they look at a haunted doll and they start antagonizing it. Oh, look at that ugly thing, it's so evil, ew. Or they start like calling it out and trying to provoke it. Of course, you're gonna have negative stuff happen to you. Instead, you either say nothing or you just treat it kindly. Um basically, you know, recently on um the movie Kevin, we watched uh The Devil's Backbone, and so we started talking about ghosts and spirits, and Richard Lale had said um they just want to be seen. They're like human beings, right? They just they just want to be noticed, they just want to be seen. And so for the most part, like if you are just really courteous and kind, you introduce yourself, like hi, you know, my name is Jenny, and just want to say hi, just want to communicate. Is there anything you want to say to me? Like it's just really positive stuff. When you start provoking and stuff, yeah, negative stuff happens. That's I mean, we don't would you like that? Would you like someone to come in your house and start yelling at you? No. So it's just like treating them like you would a friend or a human, like a living human, right? Just having all the same um politeness and courteousness and respecting that sometimes they don't want to talk. Sometimes they do, sometimes they don't, right? It's like very similar to human behavior. And so, yeah, I think that's kind of like the basics protecting yourself, cleansing, and then just being courteous and respectful, like you're in their space, you're in their place, and you, you know, want to communicate. I personally really love doing ghost tours and going to haunted places, interacting with haunted items, because it just proves what I already know. I've always believed in life after death, I've always believed in a beyond. I've never thought I could never have been, I was never atheist. I was never like we die and we turn to dust. Like I've never had that. I've always known there was something more. And to me, it's just proves that. It's just proof over and over again. Like it's like exciting to me. It's this fun. It's a good time. It's a good, it's a good date. Um, it's really fun. In fact, I'm going to hopefully haunt um haunt maybe one day. Um, hopefully book a little haunted tour for our family. We have a historic town here called Jacksonville. It's all Victorian. It's very fun. And they have haunted tours. And my daughter and husband did it a couple years ago, but my son's finally old enough, so I want to do it with him uh because he enjoyed the Whaley House. Like we are the type of family that likes to go to ghost towns and cemeteries and, you know, go to antique stores and use uh psychometry, which is like, you know, trying to pick up information on items. You know, I feel cold over here, I feel hot over here. And that's the other thing is a lot of people when they go on a haunted place, they want like the visceral thing. They want to see a ghost,

Body Signs And Spirit Communication Tools

SPEAKER_00 21:58

they want to have a photograph, they want to see something move across the room, and that's usually not gonna happen, right? That's why it's exciting when it happens on TV. Um, so things that might be an indicator for you that you're picking up on something is you really want to pay attention to your body, right? If you are especially like get yourself in a calm state, enter the haunted place or touch the haunted item, and then see what happens, right? You may all of a sudden get hot or cold, you may have a racing heart, you may get a certain impression. Of something, a word may pop into your head, you may hear a song or a voice, you may feel a strong emotion. Um, I think I already said heart racing, you may get sweaty or like cold sweat, you may get dizzy. I get dizzy. That's my indicator. And that, or like woozy, I guess, is a better way of describing it. Like I just like, ooh, I feel like lightheaded. Those are all indicators of a haunting for me, for other people as well. So it's like getting to know your body response. And then once you feel like you're picking up on something, that's when you can be like, I'm open to talking. Hey, my name is this, and who's here? And um, you know, just doing that, that's enough. Some people like to use a spirit board, some people like to use those um I think they're called spirit boxes. I want one. Someone out there want to sponsor one for me. So it's little they have them on TV shows. It's like a little communicating box. They have them on two girls, one ghost too, which by the way, if you like ghost stories, two girls, one ghost. Excellent podcast. I binged that one. That's bingeable for sure. Um, yeah, some are really they've covered so many of the famous ghost stories and hauntings, um, encrypteds. And now they do like true crime too, which is interesting. I'm not as into that. It's stereotypical of my age and gender to be into it, but I'm not. Um, but yeah, so that's a way you can communicate through tarot cards or a pendulum, uh, scrying, uh, dousing rods, any of that. It's really um limited by how you want to communicate. Because for a lot of us, it's easier to communicate through divination. And sometimes it's easier for the spirit to trust that as well, especially if they've seen that before, they've used that before as a tool to communicate. Um but for the most part, I think you know, people will stay in haunted places and whatever and not have anything happen. That's very common. Uh, I think I think spirits and ghosts and whatever you want to call them like to talk to certain people. I mean, because they're they were once human. So they just have a preference sometimes, you know, just like you have a preference for who you want to talk to. And so I think that's pretty common. Um But yeah, I would love to know your ghost stories and ghost experiences. I've had some when I was a child, um, for sure. But the very first true proof of a ghost story or haunting is that I used to

A First Ghost Sighting With Proof

SPEAKER_00 25:17

go uh hiking in New Jersey all the time at this one park, uh Rifle Camp Park. And this guy had this man, he'd been like really wealthy. He had built like a castle, and then separately he had built like a tower just in this park, and it was like preserved. And the tower was supposedly the story was um he built it for his daughter for her to stargaze, and we would hike there all the time. It was like no one would ever be there, so it was like my friend and I would hike there all the time and bring snacks and whatever, um, and just like hang out because we're teenagers and we don't want to be at home. And I had started working on like trying to open myself up to being a psychic. I was like, I'm gonna be the next Sylvia Brown, like I want this. And we went on the hike, and then I saw this man like in the tower, and I was like, whoa, like there's a man over there. My friend's like, no, there's not. And then I'm like, yeah, there is, and like I described him, and then as I'm describing him, I'm realizing like I'm describing someone in like old clothes, like a Civil War type uniform. And long story short, there had been um some kind of civil war activity there, and soldiers had died, and so my friend going to the library and researching confirmed that there was a known death or more than one death there of that time period. And so that was my first, you know, I'm like 16, and that was my first confirmation that like, yes, I saw what I think I saw, and yes, it was real, and there's proof. Um, and then I kept seeing more, and then I shut it down. It's like I actually don't want to do this because I'm just trying to survive being a teenager and go to school right now. Um, but I was always I've always been a fan of like mediums. Like I love uh John Edward, I love Tyler Henry, Sylvia

Mediumship And Afterlife Closure

SPEAKER_00 27:12

Brown was always a funny person to watch. Um, and it's just always been like fun. And I think mediums give people really good closure and give them peace. There's a really great documentary called Nobody Dies in Lilydale, and it's about uh I think Lilydale's in upstate New York, but there's more psychic mediums there than anywhere else in the world, and they just kind of like showcase people on a journey to connect with loved ones past. And, you know, like I have such strong faith in the afterlife, and I've had my grandmother come to me, and my grandfather and my father come to me, and uncle and my husband's papa who just passed, and cats and dogs, like so many people in our lives and animals who've passed away have come to me afterwards that to me I'm like it's like such peace and closure. Like I never feel like I obviously feel sad that they pass away, but I know that they're still there. But a lot of people don't have that kind of faith in life after death, and so I think mediums really give such closure to those people. It's a really beautiful thing if it's done from you know love and they're truly a medium, you know. Um yeah, so that's kind of my take on ghosts and spirits. I love that that got asked, and I hope that helps you, you know who you are in our coven. And so I hope this is a wonderful week for you. Going back to our new moon in Virgo,

New Moon Prompts And Closing Blessing

SPEAKER_00 28:50

I'm gonna ask you, um, where do you need to get organized in your life? Where could you use some cleaning or cleansing? And thinking about the high priestess, what intuition is bubbling to the surface for you right now? And since we got that card, I think definitely if you weren't already planning to do some kind of divination on this new moon, you should, because I think something's trying to talk to us. I think summer gets really busy for a lot of us and a lot of the intuition gets kind of ignored going into fall and you know the burr months. Time to get back into your your spirit and really listen to your intuition again. I'm telling you, because I need to hear that too. Um, but yeah, I hope it's a wonderful week and bless to be.