HAUNTING HYPNOSIS | Principal Hypnotized His Students & Look Into My Eyes Documentary (Ep 370)

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A grown man should not be hypnotizing children.

He was a principal with 5 days of training at a hypnosis conference and had a box of DVDs on it.

So, it's negligence.

This documentary is about a Florida high school principal who hypnotized over 70 students and three of them died within 8 weeks of each other.

And it's real?

It is real.

Very spooky.

AstroloTea

Hey.

Hi.

Before we get into today's episode, we just wanted to tell you about a new podcast that's coming out and it's near and dear to our hearts because one of our favorite people in the entire universe and galaxy is the host of it. It's Aliza Kelly.

Astrology.

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Which I love a pun. I love a play on words. Astrology.

Yeah, and she's just incredible and her readings are always so accurate and they're so relatable and I feel like no one approaches astrology like she does.

Yeah.

It's already topping the charts before it even came out. So,

Yeah, Aliza is an incredible astrologer and she's been on our show a couple of times where she's like read our own charts, but then we did that episode where she helped us understand what was happening in the stars around the Bell Witch case.

Yes.

In her new podcast, Astrology, she's going to have new episodes every Monday and Wednesday. She'll give weekly horoscopes, dig into astrology, do deep dives into birth charts, pop culture, and so many cool, fun astrology things.

So, subscribe. Add this to your rotation.

We will be listening and there will be quizzes.

[laughter]

And at the end of this episode, we're going to play the trailer.

Yeah. So, stick around.

Check it out. And now, let's get into a creepy episode.

deadly hypnosis

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Hello.

Hi everyone. This is Two Girls One Ghost.

Two Girls One Ghost.

We are your ghostesses. That's Karen. Hello. I'm Sabrina. This is Sven. We're all here and we're ready to talk about, I don't know, something that I feel like is going to make me scared and sad today.

It is it's kind of more sad than anything.

And it's real.

It is real. So, I don't know if anyone else has seen that there's a new documentary out called Look Into My Eyes and the trailer really caught my eye and I watched the first episode. The rest are behind a paywall.

[laughter]

So, I just looked at articles for the rest of it.

Where is this to watch?

It's on a few different sites. I feel like I looked at Amazon Prime and like Hulu or Apple TV. Hmm. It's a few different places that you can access the first episode.

Okay.

But basically, I was like, wait, what the [ __ ] just happened? Because this documentary is about a Florida high school principal who hypnotized over 70 students and three of them died within

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eight weeks of each other. So, it asks, was this man responsible for their deaths?

100%. I don't even know the story. A grown man should not be hypnotizing children.

No. Not without a license and he certainly did not have one.

I see a lot of issues already.

Yeah. So, this one like this episode definitely borders more on the true crime side of things because it is weird, but like it goes into a lot of like what happens to the mind in in hypnosis and just like our lack of understanding of how much it can do to influence a person.

Damn. Were you ever hypnotized?

Yeah.

Like in like what, high school prom situation?

It was like a high school talent not like a talent show, but like one of those like event. Yeah, like a high school event.

Yeah. I did it in high school at my high school prom, like our post prom. You know, I don't know if you guys had after parties.

So, my high school after the prom hosted a post prom at the school to try to prevent like kids going having sex and

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partying, but we would have a post post prom, so Like but we'd go back to the school after our prom and stay there until like 12:30 and they would have events and you had to go to the post prom if you went to the prom.

Oh, interesting. You couldn't just go home?

Um I'm sure you could go home, but like you could like

keeping you captive there?

You like it's part of it. It was actually really fun. They had like a Velcro wall. Like [laughter] they would turn the gym into

Just like jumping Sticking to a wall.

We'd all like get pajamas that like said like PDS post prom and you would like go and have like a party at the school, but it was a civilized party and part of it was you would they would have events. Yeah.

Is there like a big partying problem for for after prom?

No, we're just high schoolers. I mean we still partied after that.

Right.

So, they tried to like navigate around it and we're like, "We're 16. We can stay up late."

One of my favorite prom moments, actually my date was the prom king,

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which is

had prom king and prom queen?

Uh-huh.

Wow.

I was not the queen

[laughter]

in case anyone was wondering. Um

I feel like you would have loved it though.

Gino, he was the prom king and he deserved it cuz he looked amazing. But at that same prom, my friend Kat got breathalyzed like pulled to the side and got breathalyzed because of her dancing.

[laughter]

And then she's completely sober. So, they have to just send her back and then she's like embarrassed because she was just just wiggling and grinding

Letting her freak flag fly.

Yeah, but soberly because really we're all just children in high school and you're not really thinking about what you look like all the time.

Yeah. Wow.

Okay, so yeah, no unfortunately this doesn't have to do with prom, but it does have to do with a bunch of high schoolers. So it's the spring of 2011 in Florida and Marcus was a 16-year-old boy. He was a star quarterback. Wesley was also 16. He was a musician and he was very sensitive, a brilliant kid. He was

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dreaming of going to Juilliard and actually was preparing for an interview, an audition for Juilliard. Britney was 17. She was a math whiz, an honor student, and a girl who had her whole life mapped out in front of her. All three of these students went into their principal's office, a man who they trusted immensely. All three of them closed their eyes and within 8 weeks all three of them were dead. Today's episode is not a ghost story in a traditional sense.

Geez.

But it is a horror story inspired by well, not really inspired by. It is literally the backstory of the docu-series that's out called Looking Into My Eyes, which covers this case and interviews friends, family, and also the principal involved as well.

He's not in prison.

No. He runs a bed and breakfast.

Has anyone gone in there to make sure there's no like untoward things happening?

It's This is going to be kind of a complicated case cuz when you like hear

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about him, like I I truly I have so many mixed feelings

Okay. About the principal? Okay.

And

We'll stop and do like temperature checks along the way.

the beloved principal

North Port, Florida. If you're not from Florida, which we are not, here's a picture to be painted about this area. It's a suburb of Sarasota. It's quiet, it's flat, it's the kind of place where everybody goes to the same grocery store, everybody knows everybody. When I was watching the first episode of the docu-series, they were like, "There's literally only one high school." So if you are growing up here, you are going to this one particular high school. This is where all the kids go. And it was something like there was like a D average for grades. Like it

Not a great high school.

going great. Yeah. They had high school football games and this was genuinely like the social event of the week. And the football team was really not good.

[laughter]

For a long, long time. So, it wasn't a super wealthy area, wasn't a very glamorous area, but it but this was home to these people and this

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is representative of so many different places across the US, all over the world. These kind of like small towns where neighbors know each other, they look out for each other, everybody knows each other's names.

Community is really important.

Community is huge and one huge community member that is like an important pillar of the community is your high school principal. Like who is in charge of running a high school and preparing these children and their minds for like adulthood. Who's going to help with that? Did you like personally know your your principal? You went to a way bigger high school than I did, so.

How big was yours?

I think we had 1,200 kids in total.

Mine was way smaller than yours.

What?

I had 90 kids in my grade.

I made a lot of assumptions about you and your New Jersey.

Yeah, you did. 90 kids.

know your principal?

So, we had like class deans. And I knew I knew him, but I wasn't like friendly with him.

Oh, interesting. I feel like my principals we had two when I was there and they were super involved.

I mean, maybe they were, but I was not involved to with them. Like I I was in

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my own little world.

Oh. Well, one of them I had to get special permission to graduate early

Mhm.

from high school cuz I was over it, so. I checked out of things after 3 years, but not the podcast and not my relationship. So, [laughter] I guess like the two things that are most important I I That's good. I stayed around for about high school and college I was like, "Get me the [ __ ] out of here." So, at this high school, which like I can totally relate because this was also my experience and I think a lot of kids experience at my high school, the principal was extremely involved.

Mhm.

Met with all of the the kids, like obviously had a lot of involvement in like kids who were getting into trouble and things like that, but just like in general was like always popping into classes, always being very personable, friendly, and like a connection, and like I genuinely think that a couple of the principals that I had when I was there, if they were like, "Oh, wait, you're struggling with public speaking or whatever, like I can do hypnosis on you and help you." That I genuinely would be like, "Okay."

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Interesting.

So, I understand the direction of where this is going because of my own experiences with very trustworthy and friendly and warm administration.

would ever be okay with someone saying they could do hypnosis to help you. I don't I don't think you would.

In high school? I feel like you

Like now I'd be more like, "Mm, maybe. I don't I just That's to me so red flag. A grown adult being like, "I can help you with hypnosis."

Okay. Well, you can't see current me doing it, but I could see I could see high school me doing it. So, it's 2001, Northport High School got a new principal. His name was Dr. George Kenny. George Kenny was the first of his family to go to college. He came from a working-class background. He was, by all accounts, someone who really like pulled himself together, who did what he could to boost the people and the kids around him. He did a lot of great things at Northport High School. So, he launched AP classes, which is definitely something helpful, especially given

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their low grade average, right? So, he's like trying to help the students prepare for college or like give them a chance of maybe getting into a better college. He created some after-school art programs.

Appreciate that.

And he was also the guy who remembered everyone's name in the hallway. He showed up to the games. He supported the whole high school. He supported the students. He was a guy who believed that his strengths were his ability to see potential in a person and really bring that out of them.

What was his doctorate in? Do we know?

It's not in psychology.

Okay, that's why I'm like I'm trying to I'm trying to put the pieces together before you've even given them to me.

in like education.

Okay.

Yes. So all to say he was very well-liked, he was very popular, he was very trusted. Oh, here. And he had a doctorate in educational leadership.

Okay.

not medicine, not psychology, keep that in mind.

Okay.

Educational leadership.

Okay. And you can get a doctorate in philosophy, that doesn't make you a medical professional.

Medical professional.

Yeah. And Dr. Kenny, being so trusted,

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being so warm, having some credentials, and maybe not knowing exactly what doctor means to a 16-year-old who might be struggling with some test anxiety, his open-door policy and his willingness and eagerness to help everyone feel safe and comfortable and supported, that kind of seemed like a safe harbor for many students. So around 2006, 5 years into

hypnosis

his tenure, Dr. Kenny developed a new interest. Hypnosis. So he's been there for a while. Like 5 years in, creating all these programs, creating all these relationships, parents trust him, and suddenly he's getting a side hobby, a side interest, which is hypnosis.

Mhm.

I'm biting my tongue a bit cuz I like want to like know where the story's going before I fully weigh in.

Right.

Hold your tongue. [laughter]

Yeah.

Bite your tongue. Hold Hold Hold your tongue.

Hold your horses and bite your tongue.

[laughter]

So Dr. Kenny, in his interest in hypnosis, it wasn't just like, kind of like what you were saying before about like going to prom and getting hypnotized, it wasn't that sort of hypnosis, it was like the behind closed

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doors hypnosis.

hypnosis.

Yeah, that you would like I I think I referenced it later on um with a a particular point that I'm going to make, but like Dr. Weiss, I think of him in like psychiatry and using hypnosis for like past life regression or like different types of things to help people

Like meditative hypnosis.

Totally.

Yeah.

So that was sort of his approach. He was very convinced that hypnosis was a legitimate therapeutic tool and that it could specifically be used to help his students manage anxiety, improve their focus, raise their test scores, and even improve their athletic performances. So, that's great. You can totally believe that.

Have you seen Get Out?

I literally reference Get Out in this. I was like, this is so [ __ ] Get Out. Like, oh my gosh. It's like you already read my research. Did you?

No.

[laughter]

I know nothing.

But okay, so like you're on the same track.

thought of the athletic thing of like that's why they in Get Out pick specific

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people.

Specific people.

Yes.

So, okay. So, Dr. Kenny, like I totally am with him right now being like, okay, this could be something great. Totally. He's bringing in other programs. He's bringing in AP classes, art things, like different things. He could bring in a professional if he wanted to to do this. But instead, he was like, who needs a licensed professional and proper screening and safety protocols? I can just do this myself.

Yeah, what's his like education process? How's he learning about

I will tell you in a second.

Okay.

Well, first I'll say the American Psychological Association and the British Psychological Society both recognize hypnosis as a legitimate clinical tool when used by trained professionals.

with that.

Key being trained professionals. Dr. Kenny, or Principal Kenny, I'm just going to call him Principal Kenny from here on out just to like drive home that he is not a doctor who can be practicing this.

Yes.

He was not a trained professional. His hypnosis education consisted of watching

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DVDs and attending one 5-day training course at a place called Omni Hypnosis Training Center in DeLand, Florida.

Okay, at least he did that.

Yeah. But like, was he actually doing anything or was this just like one of those big, you know, like you check into the Marriott and you're in a conference like sitting in the back with your cold turkey and cheese sandwich for 5 days listening to someone do speeches about hypnosis.

Or is it like a cult situation?

Where like I'm picturing NXIVM where you like sign up for like self-help course and then it all of a sudden it is

Take the blue pill.

Yeah. Okay, so 5 days and a few DVDs and he starts hypnotizing his students. At first Principal Kenny did this in group setting. So he would go into psychology classes and like do this as a demonstration which made sense. But also in the documentary some of the kids were like now adults obviously when they're getting interviewed. They're like, "Oh, yeah, like he would come into classes that didn't even have to do with psychology at all and it's just like he was just trying to test his

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Right.

It was just like a fun magic trick almost like your principal coming in and you're like, "I have a guitar. Let me play you a song." And you're like "This is social studies. Like what What's going on?" Like it was out of place and it didn't make total sense. But to the kids they're like, "Okay, wait, this is cool. This is different. This is fun." So people responded to it. And then as word spread and people started really him and the students supported him. Principal Kenny started to take it a little bit further. He started doing one-on-one sessions in his office. So these are private sessions. He's inviting particular students into his office. Closing the door and performing hypnosis. I will say he did set up a camera and record the entire thing which I do think is a good idea because obviously like a grown man and a student behind closed doors.

And hypnosis like you're kind of entering a unconscious state.

Yes. He did delete a lot of the evidence.

My eye just started twitching so hard. I feel like lately cuz I've had like a

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1-month long twitch. Like I think I've referenced it in so many episodes. But lately it's been twitching when something triggers me.

And this is triggering you.

Yeah, so he deleted a lot of the evidence but there's still some tapes and like in the hypnosis there's a lot of like physical touching and it's not like like when you're watching it, there's nothing that's actually like touch-wise inappropriate when he's like holding people on their back and like putting them back in the chair except when he like touches their head or like does like a snap or something and they fall forward. He's sitting on a chair in front of them and they're falling forward and their faces are going into his lap. So the children's heads are resting on their principal's lap. Okay.

Okay.

So he's trying to keep things above board in his mind. He's videotaping them, recording them. He's actually sending home permission slips with the students to have their parents sign off. Okay.

On being able to be in the office closed door do hypnosis with him.

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Thank god.

Yeah, cuz I was getting nervous that this was like almost like non-consensual like in the sense that like parents didn't know what was going on, but I am glad

This is why it was so confusing because it was like there's

It's not secret.

It's not a secret at all.

Okay.

Okay. It's not a secret at all.

Okay.

Yeah, which it makes you think that it's like more credible and that you know, like you as a parent if you might be like concerned or whatever, then you talk to another parent whose a student did great on her second SAT scores because she started doing the hypnosis and it helped her a lot with anxiety or whatever and then you're like okay, well I guess like my son can do it for his football performance.

Sure.

[laughter]

His big show.

His ballet.

[laughter]

It is kind of a performance.

It is a performance.

Yeah.

For all the whole 30 seconds that they actually actively play in the 2-hour game. Okay. He is trying to keep things above board. It's not some secret operation behind closed doors. Parents are signing off about it. Kids are openly talking

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about it. The school district knew he was doing it. However, when the school district found out that he was doing this one-on-one. Like I think they were kind kind okay with it being sort of like a display in a psychology course. It It made sense. But he was told on three separate occasions by the executive director of Sarasota high schools to stop.

I appreciate that oversight. That like they actually were paying attention to what was happening in the school. But he didn't stop.

Yeah, they basically said, "Stop everything you're doing. You can only do it in a psych class in a group setting so long as you have permission slips from all of the parents to do it in a group setting in the psych class."

Okay.

Like it was like one very particular way that he can do it, otherwise stop. But he did not listen. He kept on hypnotizing his students.

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the three students

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By 2011, so this is 10 years after he is principal, but like five or so years into him becoming entranced by hypnosis, principal Dr. George Kenny had hypnotized approximately 75 students.

And it was all for like confidence or anxiety and like performance reasons. It was like trying to help

Yes. And actually I said students, but I think I'm not sure if it was completely students all the time. It might have been cuz I think there there were some like displays and and kind of like group settings. So I think some staff members, even some parents might have been hypnotized at a time, but largely it was students.

Okay.

One basketball player at the school reported that Kenny had hypnotized him 30 to 40 times to improve his concentration.

Okay.

So he was putting all of these teenagers in this altered mental state over and over again with zero clinical oversight, zero psychological screenings, and the

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full weight of his authority as a principal in their school. So parents were not asking enough questions. No kids ever questioned it. It just seemed like a legitimate thing happening.

Well, this is the thing with hypnosis. Like I absolutely agree with the psychological foundations where it is a helpful tool, but it has to be in like collaboration with other psychological things. Like other therapy, like talk therapy and understanding like cuz yes, maybe like we hold ourselves back subconsciously. Like we are our own worst critics sometimes or like our own worst enemies, but it's also important to like get to the root of why that insecurity exists.

Right. So it's like to your point, he's not coming in understanding anything about the psychological background or mental state or previous experiences

Yeah.

of these children and he's trying to get them to a certain place. Like he's digging into their psyche

He's like re-wiring

without knowing the bigger picture.

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You have no idea what you're triggering. This is not him just being like, "Fall over when I snap and return to the audience and when I say Scooby-Doo, stand up in place and bark like a dog." Like this is This can be very damaging.

Yeah.

And for three students in particular, their lives would be forever changed. Marcus Freeman was 16 years old. He was a starting quarterback for Northport High School's football team and he was a very big deal in the small town. Because like I said before, the football team was not good at all. Like they had the reputation of basically losing every single game. It was like so pointless to even think about being on the football team. But when he joined the football team, suddenly they started winning.

Oh.

And so he became one of the like shining star athlete players, shining star athlete, very beloved, very popular, the kind of athlete that people actually wanted to show up to the games to see.

If they're especially if they're on a losing streak and finally they have someone who's helping them win. Yeah, it would be an exciting community moment.

Yeah. It was funny because like

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in the docu-series, they're talking about how awful the football team was and how when he joined it was so great. And then it like shows a clip of um a another like from like years before like one of the high school students being like, "Oh yeah, like I'm his mentor. Like he's my protege." And I'm like, "Was that kid good or did he just want to like view himself

a part of the story?"

of the story.

[laughter]

I was like, "I think everyone before this interview said that the team sucked."

Yeah.

But anyway, that's high school. You know, you skew things. Um his best friend, Derek Thomas, described him as someone who was always full of energy, someone everyone wanted to be around. But he did suffer from one big problem and that was physical pain.

Oh.

Which is really hard when your body hurts to be a quarterback whose like whole thing is getting tackled.

Football season is rough.

hoping all of the other people are going to protect you as the quarterback, but like you can still you get tackled. You

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get tackled and like yeah, you take plenty of hits even in practice.

Jeez.

So, brutal sport for him to be playing with all of this physical pain and he's, you know, like he's new to high school and the team so like he's probably a lot younger and a lot smaller than a lot of the other guys so it hurt. At some point Marcus started going to Principal Kenny for help managing his pain for the games.

And this is also like that's so problematic because you're trying to convince someone that they're not feeling pain and then they're ignoring the pain that's happening which can hide so much worse that like that's so dangerous for them.

Exactly. It wasn't him just being like I need help like not focusing too much on the pain that I'm feeling. He literally asked like make my pain go away. I want my body and my brain to forget that I feel any pain at all so that I can stay in the games longer. That was his goal. So, Principal Kenny would hypnotize him. He described it as helping Marcus,

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quote, see things more slowly on the field. But according to Marcus's best friend Derek, it actually was a lot more alarming than that. After the hypnosis sessions Marcus would sometimes like go into this sort of trance in the games. He'd be completely blank faced. He seemed so disconnected from his body completely.

Mhm.

He would take hits that should have stopped him in his tracks without even flinching and it was as if he couldn't like feel his body.

Uh.

So, the hypnosis seemed to work. And Principal Kenny, you can see this a clip of him in the docu-series saying like, "No, I did not teach him that." But everyone else said he did.

Well, and also here's the complicated thing about hypnosis and like I think people are still trying to understand like the exact science of it, but like you are putting someone into a subconscious state and then like you're projecting like your voice into that subconscious state to try try to help rewire their conscious state.

Right, exactly. It's the rewiring.

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Which I don't think Dr. Kenny, like I just don't think it clicked in his mind.

Yeah.

Like I don't think he was delusional to the point where he thought I am qualified and capable and should be rewiring these kids brains. I don't think he understood what it was actually doing.

trying to be helpful.

Yes.

Cuz he didn't get

the proper training. So I like it just didn't Yeah. Like in his defense through some of this, I don't think it fully clicked.

Mhm.

The damage that he could be doing to these students. Apparently Principal Kenny also taught Marcus self-hypnosis so that he himself could put himself in this altered state, especially in games or like just turn it on when he needed to because it was part of like the pain management. Which that's the part that he was like, I did not teach Marcus that, but people were like, yes, you did.

You may have not meant to, but that's what you

That's what you did.

Yeah. Which proves that you didn't know what you were doing.

Yeah. On March 15th, 2011, Marcus and his girlfriend were driving home from a dentist appointment. Marcus had just had

28:00

a root canal and he was in significant pain. His girlfriend was in the passenger seat and she said everything was fine when suddenly she looked over to Marcus and he had the sort of like blank stare and blank face. It looked a very strange look on his face and it was almost like his eyes were like rolling up into his head. And she said it was like super slow motion. Like the car just started very slowly veering over to the next lane. And then they went off the road and crashed into a tree. Marcus did not survive. He passed away in the crash.

Oh my god.

His girlfriend survived with serious injuries.

That's so sad.

Investigators later came to believe that Marcus in that moment had been attempting to self-hypnotize to help with the pain of his dental procedure.

Also, he should not have been driving after a dental procedure.

shouldn't have.

And I understand why this would be really hard legally to tie back to

Mhm.

the principal in any way.

Right. And like, again, I didn't pay to watch the other

29:00

[laughter]

three episodes. I just read the news articles from like when all of this stuff was happening. But I'm not sure cuz I know that he deleted a lot of the tapes and a lot of the the evidence of the sessions and I don't [clears throat] know if Marcus's sessions were still available to like watch and be admitted into court eventually.

So, when you first like brought up this topic, because I didn't know anything about it and you were talking about hypnosis, I was picturing I mean, this is the fictionalized dramatized version of it, but Girl from Plainfield is based on that true case where like the girl like kind of encouraged someone to die by suicide.

Yeah. Wasn't it her boyfriend?

her boyfriend. Yeah. So, I was nervous that this was going to be a situation where it was like almost pushing their thoughts to a dark place, but it was like the death deaths potentially were all accidental.

Nope.

Okay, never mind. Oh, no. Oh, no.

[sighs]

Wesley McKinley was also 16 years old.

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He was a student at Principal Kenny's school. He was not an athlete, but he was a musician. He was a self-taught guitarist, a very gifted singer, super into music. He felt things very deeply, poured everything into his music. And he was planning to audition for Juilliard. And if you don't know what Juilliard is, it's a very prestigious, very difficult to get into music conservator.

Yeah, like school.

Arts.

There's like ballet, every Yeah.

Right. Yeah. Like very fancy. If you get in, it's like, "Holy [ __ ] you're

You're it."

You're it. You're going to be working in some professional capacity in that art.

Yeah.

So, this was not a kid without direction. Basically, is my point. So, what did he need in these hypnosis sessions? Well, he had a lot of performance anxiety ahead of the Juilliard audition, and so he basically went to these hypnosis sessions with Principal Kenny to help with the anxiety and help him kind of like lock in in the performance and do the best that he possibly could and not let the anxiety of the moment get the best of him and

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ruin his shot at Juilliard.

Sure.

Friends started to notice something odd after these sessions. According to a deposition from a close friend, Wesley would get on the bus after a hypnosis appointment and basically struggled to remember his own name after leaving Principal Kenny's office. And it wasn't like he was confused, either. It was basically like something had been dislodged from his brain. Like the information just was never there. In the documentary, his mother described his behavior after one of the sessions as being almost zombie-like. She said it was completely out of character for him. So, everyone was noticing that he was like very, very affected by these hypnosis sessions, which were supposed to help with anxiety.

Yeah.

Did you In the first episode, are there clips from the hypnosis session? Like, do you see how the principal like would start the session or like the words he would use in the sessions? Like, I'm just so

There are short clips, but it's not It's

32:00

not like a full

get like a full

Yeah, you can see like examples of like them standing up and then he's like doing different things and they like lean back or snap down and You see him getting them into kind of the altered state, but you don't at least in the first episode of the four episodes, you don't see like a full his line of questioning and what he's actually doing.

I mean, hypnosis is so interesting cuz it's just like I've never studied it and I will not pretend I did, but I feel like one thing I've always heard is that you can't like, if you're hypnotized, you would never do something that you wouldn't consciously do, Even if like subconsciously that idea is like for example, you and I would never murder someone unless like for self-defense. So there's like all these movies and like you know, villain archetypes where they like hypnotize someone to murder people. But if you would never do it in your conscious state, you would not do it in your subconscious state. Yeah. But when there's like slight suggestion, you don't know how far you can go with

33:00

someone.

is going. It has a lot to do with like the mental health

Yeah.

of the these two particular students we're going to talk about next who lost their lives and him not understanding or doing any due diligence into understanding like their background, their trauma, different triggers and things that could push them to a certain breaking point. So Wesley's very very affected in kind of a negative way from these hypnosis sessions that are just supposed to help him with performance anxiety ahead of his Juilliard audition. On April 7th, 2011, the day before Wesley died, Wesley had his last session with Principal Kenny. The next day, April 8th, Wesley came home from school. His mom was home. He walked right past her. He didn't say a word. He put his backpack down and he walked out the back door. She called after him, asked when his friends might be coming over and he just kept walking. An hour later, she heard sirens.

Oh.

Friends at school had noticed something

34:00

was really wrong that day and one of them actually testified that Wesley had approached him asking this friend to punch him in the face because he wanted to test something. He wanted to see if he could feel because he felt like he couldn't tell the difference between feeling and not feeling anymore.

Which is similar to the first guy.

Yeah. Wesley McKinney was found in a tree outside of his home passed away. He was 16 years old.

Oh my god, this is so devastating.

Yeah.

[sighs]

Ooh, I have chills. Britney Palumbo was 17. She was a math honors student and not just a good student, she was a standout. She was a Mu Alpha Theta, which was a Sorry. I'm like I don't know why I struggled saying that. Mu Alpha Theta the National Math Honor Society. She was a part of that and she was in student government. She was very involved. She was again like not a student without direction. Uh she cared a lot about her future and she was very stressed when it

35:00

came to her SAT scores because she had a lot of test anxiety. I feel like a lot of people when it comes to like

Yeah.

Yeah. ACTs, SATs.

There's so much pressure.

Oh my god, it's so stressful and she took the SATs and she was not happy with her scores.

Mhm.

She had had a boyfriend for years, [snorts] but they had just recently broken up and it's like the breakup there and then like her and her now ex-boyfriend had planned to go to the same school and like get into the same school together and then she's got the pressure of It's just like not really knowing like emotionally where she should be at and everything like her romantic life, her future.

Everything seems so much bigger

Mhm.

at that point in your life.

And also feels all connected to how she does on the SATs in this moment.

Mhm.

So her mother actually later described her as sad but not depressed because she had her whole life ahead of her, but she was really hoping to take the SATs again and get a better score. So she went to Principal Kenny and Principal Kenny told

36:00

Britney that she had test anxiety and that hypnosis could help her out. Britney had one session with Principal Kenny in late 2010. Her mother was present

Okay, good.

in the room with her.

I appreciate that.

It was recorded and during the session Principal Kenny had Britney bend forward and stay in that position for up to 10 minutes while he spoke to her. So she's like kind of like slumped over.

Which is not good for your like blood flow.

No, it's totally not. It's super uncomfortable.

Interesting. I'm so curious like if someone out there does study hypnosis, like I don't feel like that's the proper position.

No, not to be in for a long time. Like I remember being in that position when I was hypnotized on stage and it's like that's just to see who's susceptible and it's like okay, now like fall asleep and they snap and then if you kind of like slump over or whatever.

Or you're like sitting in a chair and you slumped over, but it's not like standing up slumped over.

I think she might have been in a chair.

[laughter]

Okay.

I I don't know. The other videos I saw

37:00

people they were in a chair. So I I'm not really sure. Her mom was there though. When it was over Britney could not remember what had happened. She couldn't remember any position she had been placed in. She couldn't remember what Kenny said to her. And her mom said in the documentary, "I don't think that he programmed her obviously to go in and die by suicide, but I think that he possibly could have given her a tool that allowed her to do what she did because she didn't remember most of the hypnosis session. Was that what took away her fight and her desire to live?"

So it was only one session.

Mhm.

And her mom was there for the whole time.

According to what I saw. Again, I didn't watch a whole documentary, so there's like

Oh, jeez.

quotes and stuff being pulled from other

Yeah.

articles about the documentary and then previous ones from years ago about the case when it was happening.

Wow. Oh, that's so sad. Cuz that one's also tough cuz like the other two victims, I'll call them that, like had 40 like sessions, right? They were

No, one one kid had 40, but it wasn't

38:00

any of the ones that had passed.

Oh.

Marcus, I don't know how how many Marcus had, but they had multiple. Both the other kids had multiple.

Yeah. Cuz this is tough cuz like you know, unfortunately suicide is an issue like in our world and people especially adolescent kids are dealing with so much stress that like they don't know how to deal with it and that is a common cause behind Yeah. suicide. So like how do you directly correlate it to this hypnosis?

Right. And it kept reminding me of this one documentary and I can't remember the name of it. I've referenced it so many times over the past years, but I think it was based in Wales where there was that one high school where kids kept dying by suicide and it would like literally a student would be being interviewed in the documentary and be like I have no idea what's happening to all any of my friends and then like a day later would die by suicide themselves. And it was just like what is happening in the air? Like what's going on? And it

39:00

made me think like Like I think if hypnosis was happening, they would have found that out in the investigation. But it made me think like was there something like hypnosis or something that was happening that just like that kind of exactly what her mom said took away her their fight and desire to live.

Can I just pause and say like anyone who's listening, if you are struggling with mental health or thoughts of suicide, like please know there are so many resources out there. You can text 988, you can call 988 and the National Suicide Hotline. I've communicated with them before. They're so helpful. It's just nice to have someone to talk to

Yeah.

and know that you're not alone and you are wanted here. We want you here. You are loved and you are important.

Please please know that. And again, in the show notes, there are resources for if you feel comfortable calling, if you'd rather text,

Yeah.

if you are worried about a friend, there

40:00

are different resources, so just check that out as well. Yeah. Brittany took the SATs again. Her scores did not improve in the way that she had hoped. And on May 4th, 2011, less than two months after Marcus had passed, less than a month after Wesley had passed, Whitney's parents had found her in her room having passed.

Ugh.

So, in an 8-week span, North Port High School had lost three students. All three students had been hypnotized by their principal and according to friends and family had been deeply affected by those hypnosis sessions.

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41:00

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lies

So, after Marcus had passed away in March from the car crash, which was ruled as an accident, uh people hadn't connected it to the hypnosis sessions and Dr. Kenny cuz it just like it didn't really make sense. Like he just veered off the road. He just had dental procedures. There were so many different

42:00

other

elements

elements that could have been contributed to it. So, people were like, if these other two students hadn't passed and that sort of like investigation start happening, this could have gone on for so long and so many more people could have gotten hypnotized and potentially hurt, but because it happened in such a quick succession and there were three students, then it started to kind of unfold.

Right.

Unfortunately, people die in car accidents all the time. It's devastating, but there wasn't immediately a pattern until Wesley had passed in April. The community was super shaken, obviously, by these deaths. It's always tragic when someone passes, especially someone young and especially three people from the same high school.

Yeah.

So, people started to murmur. They started to talk about how these students had been hypnotized by Principal Kenny, which wasn't a secret. Again, like his sessions were openly known about, openly discussed. Parents were joining sessions. Parents were signing permission slips. But, people started to ask, when Wesley

43:00

had passed first, was he also hypnotized like Marcus was?

Mhm.

And Principal Kenny said, yes, he had hypnotized Wesley the day before he had passed. So, when this all came out, he was put on administrative leave with pay. Uh but, what what's interesting is when asked if he had hypnotized Brittany, he said, no. Even though her mom was

So, he's now also kind of scared.

He start starting to realize like, oh my gosh, am I getting investigated? Like, this has something to do with me. Yeah. So, first he's like, yes, Marcus, yes, Wesley. And then Brittany passes. Brittany was like, nope, nope.

No.

I didn't I didn't do that.

Damn.

lied. An independent investigation by the Steel Investigations Agency eventually revealed the truth that he did, in fact, hypnotize all three students. And when he was asked why he lied about Brittany, he said that he accidentally lied because of the stress he was under. Accidentally lied about hypnotizing a now dead 17-year-old girl

44:00

who he hypnotized in his office with her mom. And this was the principal who supposedly knew everyone's names in the hallway.

You know how you accidentally lie sometimes when you're stressed?

Yeah.

Yeah, you know.

And forget an entire person and everything you did.

Yep.

So, the full investigation conducted by the school district found that Principal Kenny had hypnotized approximately 75 people from 2006 up until the deaths of these students in 2011. So, 5 years of sessions. Dozens of students. Absolutely no

clinical oversight, no psychological screening, no follow-up care, a blatant disregard of the orders he was given by the executive director of the Sarasota School District to stop what he was doing.

But how? Well, we already answered that a lot. I think they say how can [laughter] hypnosis that's supposed to improve focus and lessen stress lead to death? And this is what we've already been discussing.

Yeah.

So, there is a widespread belief that hypnosis just makes you relaxed.

45:00

But that is guided meditation.

[laughter]

That is different than hypnosis. Oh, this is where I connected it to Get Out.

Okay.

Cuz I wrote I think a lot of TV and film portray it as such, the sort of like

Yeah.

relax and get into this state. But hypnosis is shown to be something a lot more serious than that. The only time I remember seeing it

Mhm.

portrayed as something much more serious was in Jordan Peele's movie Get Out.

Yes.

I don't know if it's portrayed in other films like that, but I was like I wrote one of the best movies ever made. I'm a huge Jordan Peele fan. Yeah.

Okay, so perhaps there was a misunderstanding of what hypnosis actually was. Multiple studies have found that hypnosis significantly increases the formation of false memories, and not just a little bit. One study found that when subjects were explicitly warned that hypnosis might create false memories, 28% of them actually developed false memories anyway.

Woah.

And if they weren't warned, it was 44%.

False memories?

46:00

Yes. And so, this research was done in 1997 and I was trying to see if there was like that same sort of research was duplicated again more recently. But this is where I was like, oh that's so interesting because of Brian Weiss's work, I wonder kind of like what happens there with false memories because Brian Weiss, we've brought him up so many different times. He is a psychiatrist and he's also a hypnotherapist famously known for the book Many Lives, Many Masters. He didn't believe in anything woo-woo or anything like that. Like barely believed that hypnosis could be helpful. Started using hypnosis to treat some of his patients and was surprised when a lot of his patients started to elaborate on these memories that didn't belong to their current life and he was like, oh my god, I've tapped into people's past lives. It's all about past life regression.

Right. Well, so then that makes me wonder if these supposed false memories are actually past life memories.

Right. Like are they not false memories at all?

But they just don't belong to this current life.

47:00

Mhm.

But that's also very confusing.

It's hard to understand.

Actually at South by Southwest, I spoke with someone who has done the Gateway Tapes.

Oh, really?

And they said in the very first experience, they saw a woman holding who he knew would be his baby and it was years before and now he has a baby and he said that the first time he saw his baby, he knew it was a baby he saw when he did the Gateway Tapes. Isn't that crazy?

That's so wild.

Yeah.

But I totally believe that.

Yeah.

Yeah, so it's confusing with like what can be a false memory and what isn't and actually a lot of these psychological associations has said that it's basically impossible without corroborative evidence to distinguish between what is a false memory and what is not. Right. So hypnosis muddies the water completely.

Totally.

So what does that mean in practice? It means that when you put someone in a hypnotic state, you can introduce ideas, suggestions, and feelings that don't belong to them, which you already were talking about. You can implant something

48:00

without even meaning to, and they may never remember that that happened at all. They may never believe it in total confidence.

Jeez.

But there are these documented risks cited by clinical professionals that hypnosis can trigger latent mental health conditions that were previously dormant. So, does hypnosis cause suicide? Mm, not likely, but it can trigger some underlying mental health problems, I guess, that are dormant.

Mm.

Or it can implant ideas that contribute to something that already may have been like underlying and festering.

Well, it's also just so crazy that we we still don't understand the brain.

Mm. Right.

Uh like we don't know like it's such a complicated

Mhm.

structure.

And it's also trippy that we don't understand it when it's like that's what holds our thoughts. Like, why don't you know about yourself?

But is that what holds your thoughts? Cuz like we've talked about, does consciousness live in the brain or not?

49:00

Yeah, we I talked about it on Blink. There was a lot of um scans that suggested that there was nothing going on.

Yeah.

And then in fact there were. We don't know what's going on in the brain. We truly don't understand it. How did Principal George Kenny? He didn't. That's the point. So, he had no idea going into any of these hypnosis sessions where he was treating his students if they had any latent mental health conditions. He never asked, he never screened them. He was a principal with 5 days of training at a hypnosis conference, and had a box of DVDs on it.

So, it's negligence.

Yes, and was opening the minds of these teenagers.

the legal case

So, what happened to Principal George Kenny? The Florida Department of Health investigated him and found that he had violated state law. Florida has a statute that bars therapeutic hypnosis unless it's monitored by a medical professional. So, I guess you can practice it without a license, but it has to be Someone with a license has to oversee it.

Make sense?

He was charged with two misdemeanor

50:00

counts of practicing therapeutic hypnosis without a license. Two misdemeanors. So, a very soft sentencing given that he could have been charged with reckless endangerment, manslaughter, practicing therapy without a license, which would have been a felony. Okay, so why the lesser charges? Well, Principal George Kenny, well, I guess he's not a principal anymore. Uh George Kenny himself explained in the documentary that in Florida, if you're convicted of a felony as an educator, you can lose your retirement benefits. And so, his attorney worked really hard to plead no contest so that he basically could protect his pension. So, he pleaded no contest. He was sentenced to two consecutive six-month probation terms and 50 hours of community service.

If you're watching the video, my face

should say it all.

He resigned from North Port High School in June of 2000

So, he wasn't even fired?

I guess. Well, he was put on administrative leave, but yeah, I guess like

51:00

Or the story was that he resigned probably to help with his benefits. Cuz if he was fired, maybe that would also impact

Right. Yeah, I'm not sure.

Protect him. Sure.

And in 2013, he surrendered his teaching license. In December of 2012, the families of Marcus Freeman, Wesley McKinley, and Britney Palumbo filed wrongful death lawsuits against the Sarasota County School Board. So, they couldn't file it against Principal George Kenny personally because under Florida law, the school district employees are considered an extension of the school board. So, they had to go after the district.

I think that's also very fair. Like, the school board told him not to do it, but didn't actually intervene enough to make it stop.

Right, like he kept doing it and it was very open and public. So, it's not like he was doing it in secret. He just kept doing it.

Yeah.

In October of 2015, so that is 3 years later, the school board settled. Each family received $200,000. It's like nothing when your child dies.

Yeah.

But that is the maximum that any Florida government agency can pay without

52:00

special approval from the state legislature or governor.

Mhm.

The attorney for the families, Damian Mallard, said that basically like the families don't give a damn about the money. They have dead children. Like

Nothing can replace that.

money

Nothing can ever bring them back.

Yeah, exactly.

Yeah.

But the thing that was most disappointing was that Principal Kenny never apologized.

He never apologized?

admitted to any wrongdoing. And that's where I was like, cuz throughout this whole thing I was like, okay, like maybe he just truly didn't understand.

Which is still a crime.

It's still a crime. It's still negligent. But did I think that that made him a terrible person?

a malicious person.

Yeah, it wasn't like with malice that he was doing these things. But then, hearing that he never admitted fault, never was like, "Oh my god, I'm so sorry. I can't believe

This happened."

That this happened, that my actions led to this. Like Nothing.

Even like you can apologize without

53:00

taking blame. Like or taking fault. You can believe that your hypnosis process didn't lead to their deaths, but also be so deeply sorry for these families

Yeah.

who just lost their children.

Yeah, apparently he never apologized.

It is really interesting, too, to watch in the docu-series because there's so many people who are being interviewed who respond to, like now knowing everything cuz obviously they're being interviewed many years after the fact, they're responding to questions about like Dr. Kenny and just the situation with such disgust for him and the situation. But then there are other people that were like, "No, he really did help a lot of us."

That's what I was going to ask cuz he hypnotized over 70 people. Like yeah, were there people who feel changed for the better by

Yeah, some people did think that their lives changed for the better based on their relationship with him and the hypnosis that he did on them. So, it is tough.

Yeah.

George Kenny believes that Marcus was simply in a car accident with no link to

54:00

hypnosis and that Wesley and Britney's deaths are just coincidence given that he did hypnotize so many students. And also, like, profiting the people who did go seek help from him saying, you know,

I also have read a fact and I don't know. I'm Again, I'm not qualified to say this, but I've read a fact that when there are, like, multiple suicides, sometimes, like, someone who has been considering suicide actually feels more motivated to after someone successfully does. So, like, it is hard to pinpoint the reason and cause for all of those.

Right.

And this is also it's not a straightforward case. It's not like he was lacing someone's food or injecting them with something or sending them text messages encouraging them to

take their lives.

take their lives.

Yeah. Yeah.

This was hypnosis where he was taping them and actively trying to lead them through exercises to help them with their specific thing that they asked for

55:00

help with. So, that's why it's really confusing.

Yeah.

But again, like, he didn't apologize, which is so or it's said that he didn't apologize, which is very shitty and there are three kids who lost their lives.

Yeah.

He is now living comfortably in retirement, sort of. I guess he he owns a bed and breakfast, apparently, in North Carolina with his pension. So, in the end, what we do know is that after three Principal Kenny's students died after undergoing untrained hypnosis sessions with George Kenny, he continued to sell hypnosis MP3s and CD's on Amazon. Once Yeah, once his probation was done, he moved to North Carolina describing his move as turning a page where he now operates a bed and breakfast. Unfortunately for Marcus, Wesley, and Britney, those children did not get to turn the page.

How could he ever continue any type of hypnosis?

56:00

I know. I literally have chill like goosebumps because I can't even fathom.

It makes me want to cry. Like that that is to me the most malicious part of this story. Like to continue

You can be like, "Oh, he didn't say sorry." And it's like, "Well, did he not say sorry or is that just what the lawyer said?" He probably didn't, but like you there's still like the What is it? Like the air of doubt or But I'm at a loss for words, but just like, you know, you're still trying to find a way to to make him out to be

Like I'm also just putting myself in in his shoes because I understand how he could go into all of this with good intentions, fine. But three students die and you don't even for a second question your involvement and you continue to do hypnosis. I cannot believe

for your involvement with hypnosis. It's not like you just didn't make the connection that it was your hypnosis. Like you're literally being told by investigators that there might be a connection.

and you continue to do the hypnosis.

Yes. Also, it's not like this is the

57:00

only way for him to survive is selling these CD's and MP3's. Like this isn't that is a hobby. It's very disturbing. Incredibly disturbing.

money on those.

No, it's very disturbing. Incredibly disturbing.

Jeez.

So, that is the story, the real story behind the Look Into My Eyes documentary about the hypnosis and deaths involved behind Principal Kenny's behind closed doors hypnosis sessions.

I have never heard a lick of this story.

Me neither. Not but but I kept seeing all the ads for the for the and like promos for the docu-series. I was like, "Oh, wait. What is this? Like hypnosis kills people?"

It is so messed up. But again, included in the show notes are resources for suicide prevention. You can call or text 988. You can text home to 741-741. And also for the LGBTQ community, place that we donate to regularly, the Trevor Project

58:00

is also a wonderful resource. You can text start to 678-678. All of these numbers are included in the show notes.

Yeah. That's upsetting. I'm like mad and yeah, I'm mad.

Yeah. Yeah, it's horrifying.

Damn.

It's horrifying. Anyway, sorry. That was definitely airing way more on the true crime side of things, but like that the tagline caught my eye, you know?

Right. No, that's I mean, absolutely.

Hypnosis.

And it does bring up this like larger debate and conversation about what the like brain can do and the influence that sound, words, and hypnosis, things like that can have on it. Damn. Okay.

listener story

I have a story from our listener Lexi and it's called 23 years haunted, hypnosis uncovers childhood entity attachment, nightmares, and haunted object.

Wow, that's a lot a lot.

Yeah. Hi Karen and Sabrina. My name is Lexi, she/her. I live in Rome, Italy and first off, I just want to say thank you.

59:00

I've been listening to Two Girls One Ghost for a few months now and it's become my safe space.

Aw.

You're my new favorite podcast.

you for your pizza and tomatoes.

I was like I was like, "Where did she talk about the Rome?"

Rome. I wish I could get your pizza delivered here and your pasta. And just your fresh ass tomatoes. Okay, so this story begins with my first encounter with the paranormal, which happened when I was just over a a old. That encounter turned into a lifelong attachment that stayed with me until recently, and I'll try to tell it as clearly as I can, even though some parts feel a little tangled in memory and energy. And also, content warning, I do briefly mention suicide. But, that's a content warning for this whole episode. It was summer. My parents had invited a couple of friends over for lunch. My dad was out in the garden grilling, and their friends were sitting on the couch watching TV. And my mom, who we'll call Faye, to keep it simple in English, was rocking me to sleep in the darkened bedroom. And one thing you should know is I was an impossible baby. I didn't

1:00:00

let my parents sleep for the first 36 months of my life.

Oh, that sounds so familiar.

Like, yeah, just like Noah.

He's 21 months and has just now started sleeping through the night sometimes.

[laughter]

I barely slept an hour a day. Even now at 24, I suffer from intense sleep issues. So, that day, while my mom was trying to put me to sleep, the bedroom door was just slightly ajar when my mom heard a whisper right outside. Faye. Faye, open the door. She assumed it was one of her friends and whispered back, "I can't. I have the baby in my arms. You open it." But again, the voice said, "Faye, open the door." So, she gave in, walked over, and nudged the door open with her foot, only to find no one was there. Just the empty hallway. She felt that kind of confusion that bleeds into fear. So, she put me down and went to go check the living room. And that couple was still sitting in the living room watching TV calm as ever, and my dad was still outside at the barbecue. But something had called her name, and something had entered that space

1:01:00

and entered me. Because from that moment on, I was not alone. So, fast forward to 2005. Sadly, my dad took his own life after separating from my mom. He had bipolar and had been medicated for years, but unfortunately, he passed.

Oh, I'm so sorry.

After his death, strange things began happening, which is a whole other chapter that I'll save for another email, but for years I experienced what I thought were signs from him, like messages on steamed-up mirrors, literally the word boo on the mirror, which I think is so sweet.

so sweet.

My keys would go missing, phone would go missing, my shirt would be tugged on when no one was there, scratches on the walls. And sometimes I thought it was him, sometimes I wondered if it was his parents who did die shortly after he did.

Mhm.

[clears throat]

But these experiences always centered on me. And rarely did anyone else believe what I was going through. Then in 2024 I finally moved into my own home and I had waited years to live alone. It was supposed to be my fresh start. But almost immediately things started to

1:02:00

happen. At first I brushed them off. Until one night I woke up suddenly. Not sleep paralysis, no, I was fully awake and I saw two tall dark figures standing at the foot of my bed. Their energy was male and they had glowing red eyes.

Ooh, the glowing red eyes.

They didn't speak but I understood what they wanted. They had visited because they wanted to eat. They were hungry.

What the hell? The way that this email started I absolutely thought it was going to be this lovely like, "Oh, my grandfather and my dad came together."

Nope.

To visit. I turned over trying to ignore them. And that's when my dog growled. Trust your pets. The next morning I convinced myself it was just a nightmare. But that wasn't so convincing cuz it would not leave my mind. I cleansed the house and unfortunately things escalated. Like full glasses of water would be knocked over, cups and plates were shattered, I heard buzzing and singing voices in the middle of the

1:03:00

night. I was truly terrified and I had just moved in.

This is like poltergeist activity.

Yeah. But because I had just moved in I wasn't going to give up either. I was excited, this was supposed to be my new chapter. So I started looking for something that could be guilty for causing all of this. And I noticed the chandelier in my bedroom. It was a huge antique rosebush-shaped piece that I had bought secondhand. It's beautiful. There's a picture of it attached. Like it's stunning. Oh, it's so whimsical and pretty. I had bought it secondhand. It had twisting roses and tangled metal vines. But every time I looked at it, I felt dizzy. So, I sprayed it with full moon holy water. And each time I would spray, a thick white mist would rise from it.

Excuse me?

I thought I was cleansing it, but I wasn't. So, I contacted a medium, an old friend of my mom's, who came to do a reading. And her conclusion was that the house wasn't the problem, but I was. So, that these things were attached to me.

1:04:00

So, she recommended a regression hypnosis to open a portal and release the entities. So, I did. It was me, the medium, and a hypnotherapist. She guided me into a deep vision where I found myself in a cave. Outside was the sea, and behind me was total darkness. And this total darkness was scary. I didn't want to turn around to face it. In fact, I couldn't turn around because I was so scared of it.

The sea in front of you is also really scary. It's like when I think of being completely out of control about what can happen to you, I think of being in the ocean.

Like lost at sea.

So, see, they like turn you turn your back to the total darkness, or you go into the sea where the sea will make of you what it wants.

So, the medium joined me in the vision and placed her hands on my shoulder. And she helped me turn to look behind me. It's there that the medium saw them, the two entities. One was my father, and the other was something else. It climbed into my chest, pushing down on

1:05:00

my lungs until I couldn't breathe. I managed to push it out, but the air still wouldn't come back. The therapist asked me to describe it, and I described it as this, a formless monster, constantly shifting its face. It had no mouth and was made of liquid. The medium channeled its voice. It said it was the one who had entered me when I was just 2 years old. It chose me. I was energy it could feed on, and now that I lived alone, I was finally it's to devour. So, dating all the way back to that day when Fay, her mother, put her to sleep and heard that voice.

Holy [ __ ]

Together, we managed to send it away. We opened a portal and it went. I truly couldn't breathe properly for 2 weeks, but slowly it did get better. Then came my father's turn. The medium channeled him. He said his name was Chris, short for Christian. He admitted that he had been the one tugging my shirt, moving the pots,

1:06:00

playing with the lights, but I couldn't bring myself to ask why. I was too emotional. And in the end, through this work, he was ready to go. He imagined a peaceful mountain landscape with streams and a perfect view, and I was able to let him go, too. We did one final check to make sure that no new entity was trying to attach itself to me, and that is when I saw a woman. She was soaking wet, skinny, naked, with long dark hair, and she said her name started with an S. She looked about 50, but before I could say anything else, the medium screamed, "No, she's a disincarnate. Her name is Sarah. She's 52. She drowned in the river."

What?

Whoa, it's just a sudden hit from the medium about all the details.

And what does a disincarnate mean?

I don't know. Let me Google it right now. Being free from the physical body, existing as a disembodied spirit or in an immaterial form.

Hm, interesting.

Which like, is that not just a ghost? I don't know.

But I mean, the way the medium screamed, it's like doesn't seem good. Right, it

1:07:00

doesn't. Don't don't engage with her almost.

It's also um a death metal band from the '90s.

Love that. After the medium screamed, we ended the session. I kept telling that the hypnotherapist that I could see a dark shadow with crazy spiky hair at the corner of my bedroom, and it was smiling and staring at me.

So creepy.

The medium couldn't see it.

What? That shocks me given like just everything that had been happening.

had just been

Yeah. Yeah. I know that I haven't completely closed myself off, but after all of this, both the medium and hypnotherapist have told me that it should be enough to now enjoy my home peacefully. And after that, things did start to get better slowly. I even noticed my nightmare stopped for a little while because just recently those singing voices have come back. This time though, they were soft, more feminine, gentle.

Okay.

And I haven't felt as afraid.

I feel like you still need to keep your guard up.

For sure.

Because for it to return and what

1:08:00

happened last time and maybe it's trying to be more gentle in its approach to try to gain your trust again.

I know. With gratitude and ghostly love from Rome, Lexi.

Oh my gosh, Lexi. Well, here's the good thing about being in Rome.

You got a lot of

priests to exorcise you.

Oh, I thought you said you can stress eat.

You can stress eat.

[laughter]

And it's good food for you.

Drink good cheap wine.

Mhm. Yeah, the Vatican is right there. You're right. That's a better point. Yeah.

Uh-huh. So, the vampires

The Vatican and the vampires.

Priests and vampires, they're all there for you. They got you.

Damn. That it was a lot more extreme towards the end than I thought it would be. Because again, she opens up with like just a nice visit. It was a nice visit. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Just her dad trying to be silly.

And also what a like benign little encounter of like her mom trying to put her to sleep and a soft voice being like, "Fay,

Open the door."

Open the door. Again, it starts with the softness.

Mhm.

Let that be your warning.

1:09:00

Trust nothing. And if you do decide to do hypnosis, because I do think there is real like benefit from it, make sure you're doing it with actual medical professionals.

Yes. It's a part of a therapeutic in tandem.

Practice as a whole. With other therapeutic practices, yes, absolutely.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And you can listen to our podcast.

And you can get episodes 1 week early and ad-free on Patreon. You can also get bonus episodes. We also have witch class book club. We're reading Hollow by Selina Myers right now for our book club, which we will be discussing in May. So, just in a couple weeks from this episode coming out. And if you are familiar with Selina, she's also Selina Spookyboo on TikTok.

Mhm.

And a listener of ours, we were fans, and then she revealed that she's a fan of ours, and now we obviously had to support her and read her book, which is amazing. And then, what else? You can watch videos on YouTube. You can rate and review us on

1:10:00

iTunes. And please tell your friends, your family, your ghosts all about us.

Thank you to Jamie Ryan who edits and produces our podcast. And thank you to all of you.

We love you.

And be well.

See you on the other side.

Very spooky.

AtroloTea trailer

What the hell is going on these days? Why is everything so ridiculously crazy and intense and high stakes and just like

wild?

Well, friends, it's tea.

It's actually Astrologea

Hi, I'm Aliza Kelly, astrologer, author, and now the host of my brand new podcast Astrologea with Aliza Kelly. My brand new show begins on Monday, April 6th, and every week I will be bringing you two piping hot new episodes wherever you get your podcast, on Spotify, on Apple, on YouTube, you name it. I am

1:11:00

serving the tea to you. I'll meet you wherever you are. On Mondays, I'll deliver your weekly brew. This is where we talk about everything you need to know for the week ahead. I'll serve horoscopes plus tarot plus journal prompts plus easy-to-follow explanations as to what is actually happening in the sky and most importantly what it means for you. So, you'll always know exactly how to prepare for the week ahead. And on Wednesdays, we're going to have a tea party. In these Wednesday episodes, we are going to steep deep into different parts of astrology that actually shape your life. We're going to get into your moon sign. We're going to unpack the best career path for you based on your birth chart. We're going to talk about timing and all of the crazy rare astrology that's happening right now. And maybe we'll even look at the astrology of the most shocking scandals and conspiracies and controversies. Maybe we'll even talk to celebrity guests. One thing's for sure, these tea parties are going to be amazing and I

1:12:00

can't wait to stir it up with you. So, make sure you follow and subscribe to AstrolaTea with Aliza Kelly right now on Spotify, on Apple, on YouTube, at my channel. AstrolaTea is everywhere and I want you to be ready for the magic. AstrolaTea premieres on Monday, April 6th and trust me, you don't want to miss it. So, I'll see you there.