Ghosts Scratching Behind the Walls | The Dark History of Mary King’s Close (Ep 218)

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very spooky ah hi oh my gosh hi Corinne I know this hasn't actually happened yet but this is past me congratulating future us about how great our live show in Portland Maine was and that we're gonna kick major boo tea in New Jersey I just can't believe that we have two episodes that come out between the time that we actually did a live show and when we get to talk about it it's so tough I know just sit here and be like what did happen what was life like should we try to should we predict the

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future wait can I actually tell you something well should we okay backing up thank you to everyone who came to our Portland if you're around in New Brunswick New Jersey we do have a show Wednesday April 26th at the stress Factory so please come let's join and if you are looking to listen back to these episodes it will be part of one of our patreon tiers so head over to patreon and see how you get to listen to lose of that interests you

Corinne's spooky reflection

this is also two girls one ghost that's what I was gonna say because oh that's Karen I'm Sabrina because I don't know sometimes I feel like people just have things queued up and so it will start and I don't know maybe you're like what am I listening to hi it's us it's us um it's us Jinx let's okay two things I want to hear what you had to say and then two okay um oh maybe three things two I would

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love to predict the future with you and three uh if you haven't already go watch us on YouTube subscribe to our Channel we post all the video versions of our episodes on there and you get to see our face we just hit 10 000 subscribers there too oh my gosh congrats I said congrats to you as if as an applied it's my podcast thank you podcast that was such a Boston accent there oh yeah I've been here too long um okay here's what I was going to say yes please tell me and this is super freaky oh so over Easter I was home in Vermont and while I was in Vermont I was in my bedroom and I was changing and I always change in this one corner over by the mirror and because it's away from the windows it like perfectly puts me out of sight from the windows so I can change with

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the lights on and no one outside walking by will see me or like driving by so I always change that one spot and I always always have I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror and I look so much like the woman I saw when I was in Middle School who came and comforted me while I was thankfully and I had like a full like my heart went into my stomach because I always describe this woman as like really long dark hair wore really baggy clothing and in this moment as I was changing and I caught a glimpse of myself I'm I'm standing in that exact spot that the woman would come out of and I've got my long dark hair and I'm I'm wearing super dark baggy clothes and I was like holy [ __ ] is it me am I in the next like 10 years or so gonna go back somehow to myself it like really did look like me like I was really freaked out by it and I told my old co-worker Amanda who's super

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spiritual and into all of this stuff because I was like I had this really weird thing happen to me and I think I think it's me I think it's like a future me like a suit to be future me that goes back I'm not kidding my heart has stopped and I'm crying I think it's me I never have thought that ever before but I saw myself in the mirror and I was like that's me I'm her like I see who I saw basically like uh I couldn't because I never saw the woman's face but I saw her body and what her clothes and her hair and I in the mirror I was like that's me because I see it Corinne oh my you're gonna make me cry that is the most beautiful I mean I mean I haven't gone back yet but I think I do I think I do this is what's incredible two things not only is it the most heartwarming

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thing in the world to put that together to realize you comfort yourself you comforted yourself your younger self who was being bullied who was going through such a painful time but two Corinne that means you're gonna tap into your freaking abilities and travel back in freaking time time you're to time travel I think I

Spirit guides and ancestors

will and here's another thing that's interesting so when I was talking to my friend Amanda about it who I who I used to work with her and I are let me get the name of it because I I'm about to talk about the club so we started that class oh yeah I started on your calendar oh yeah I'm taking it I just took the second class it is let me give you the details okay so it's through The Shift Network and we can put the link down in the show notes here so that people can find it but it's through the Shift Network in the class is called heal heal your life and Legacy and it's led by Christina Lee Pratt and I think

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there was a people can do the live sessions but we're currently I'm currently doing the version where you get to just like re-watch the live session so do I do this too Christina yeah you should we should be doing at the same time what the heck sign up do it I'm like mad at you but you have you did nothing wrong I didn't and I also didn't orchestrate this I was brought into a another group of no well there's a bunch of classes so Sabrina we should look we should look and find one that we want to do together oh you know what would be fun is if you take this one I take a different one and then we share our knowledge with one another and so we have more damage okay the yeah teamwork yeah perfect teamwork we'll take all of the courses here yeah but so I'm I've only taken the second course of Heal Your Life and Legacy but there's an exercise that you do where you're supposed to go through this meditation and try to see and like visualize your

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basically your Spirit guides who are also ancestors of yours so like lineage-wise related to you in in some way so it's it's technically supposed to be like you do it four times and if you're adopted or have different parental and family units you can do it however many times you need but like you would go through this exercise and you would think okay I'm going to tap into my mom's mom's side my mom's dad's side and then the third time your dad's dad's side your dad's mom's side or however your family unit is set up and so I was trying to do it and I need to do it again because I didn't I thought I saw five people and these like things but then I started to question myself I was second guessing myself and I was like well am I saying that because I think I'm supposed to be seeing that is that is that real or is that just like what I envisioned this to be and then I started kind of pulling like At first I was trying to tap into my mom's mom's or sorry my mom's dad's

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side and then I started to feel really guilty like why am I not trying to First tap into my dad's dad's side because like he lost his dad I was like why wouldn't I tap in there first maybe I could make contact on that so I was just all over the place you were being critical of yourself while doing it I need to be way more Zen just like trust what happens and take things as they come and we're currently working on building our our altars for these bear guides so Sabrina when you were with me because you're about to fly in for the Portland yeah when we're recording this when you're with me we'll probably have to stop in random places for me to pick up like little trinkets to have on my altar but the point being is someone who's doing the class with me they did see ancestors and one of them she got a very strong feeling that it is her but like a version of her her current soul from a previous like hundreds of years ago oh wait okay my friend L'Oreal

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who I worked with on prodigal son did this whole meditation I think it was a class where she worked with someone a medium of some kind and she was meditating and befriending her past lives and similarly she was able to communicate with past lives so it's her but in different old version lives yeah yeah because that was one of the things that came up in the class and and one of the women who is doing the class with me she took it live so like some of the questions I asked her a lot of the questions that I have because I'm watching the pre-recorded videos but we're like doing it as a group and in a yeah group setting and so she is able to answer a lot of the things for me and one of the questions I had was like okay well if I'm calling upon these ancestral beings like I believe in reincarnation so absolutely how does how does that work if the lesson that I need is from an ancestor who maybe lived 300 years ago but they're currently living or like just lived in the 90s or they're living

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as my dog or like how do I tap in to that and it was basically like the whole thing of like time is not linear and yeah you just do get to call upon these different versions of you and of other people and other Souls when you need them that's so true it's so fat I mean it goes back to the conversation of like your soul can be in multiple places like when you pass on it doesn't mean your whole soul is reincarnated into the next life like there's perhaps pieces fragments all over the place and then timelines it's just yeah and to another fascinating part of this class and I'm only on lesson two like it's just happened to last night and I'm already like but it was basically saying that there's different terms used and I like won't get into the terms mostly because I partially like forget the actual definition I don't want to confuse anyone but basically there's different

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terms associated with different ancestors who come through to attempt to be Spirit guides and some some of them are there to like appropriately give you what you need and then there are other ancestors that will either very clearly not be there with the best in well maybe with good intentions but like will very clearly struggle to be a spirit guide and to come forth or you won't be able to call at all and there's a few reasons why that could be and one of the reasons was that it could just be a lesson that like you have to learn entirely by yourself oh and like it's just up to you and you can't just like ask for things to be solved for you it's up to you but what if I don't know what if I don't have the answers you can like still ask for signs to like point you in the right direction but you can't say like I'm I don't know like I'm con I'm confused with how to best organize my podcast

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Studio like yeah yeah yeah um another reason was that they the term used was like basically that they aren't reconciled they haven't reconciled their life so if they come forward or if they don't come forward at all and there's just like either fuzziness or they're not there it's because they can't they haven't looked back on their life and acknowledged all of the good and bad lessons that they've learned learned lessons that they didn't learn things they did right things they did wrong they haven't looked at that and accepted it they haven't so they can't help you because they haven't helped themselves yet oh that's exactly so fascinating I am so excited about this yes there was a third piece of it too where it was basically like some of those ancestors who haven't reconciled can you know sometimes we think of them as ghosts or

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spirits that like show up or linger or they're they're still here or whatever and you can we have not gone to this particular class and I don't know if we ever will but in this specific module but you can help them so it's like they need to level up to help you but you could help them from where you are recognize what they need to do to level up to come back to help you it's that's amazing energy time space it's so yeah Spirits I think it's important to Karen because I had this with Joe you know how you were saying that you were questioning oh am I seeing this because I'm supposed to be seeing this or I'm convincing myself I think the most important part of all this is just let it happen and don't question it because I had the same experience with Joe like I saw on either side of me I saw two kind of white shape figures and then on the other side I saw three and you know Joe was just like go home and

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write down the images you've seen because maybe you're creating them but maybe you're not and maybe if you write them down now and then something happens you can look back and be like oh I saw that and now that you've put that together the more you're able to trust what you see yes you just need to kind of like fully let yourself go into it it was hard to because the image that I saw was this like really light blue background and then it was like shapes it like looked literally looked like an Angelic like glowing yeah figure mine too like five people yeah okay that's that's even more freaky because I I was second guessing myself because I was like this feels like a very like Christian view of things and I don't really like identify as like a super Christian person or a really Catholic even though I was racist Catholic so I was like is this just like in me and then I was trying to like change the way it looked in my mind I was like what if we make the background black and then there's like all these

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Neons like sequences and DNA coming through yeah and then that like came in for a second and went away and like stayed the blue with the beings and I was I was just way too in my head about it I can't remember if I was reading a book I think this is from a book my my goodness I will not be able to remember because I lately I'm like is this a dream is this reality is this a book is this a show I don't know but I was reading something I think where this Spirit was in this strange astral plane and the idea was that it was what they created so you can is this from Many Lives Many Masters no no this is from our previous nde episodes I don't know let's see but the idea being that you can you can change it based on your beliefs and then it's a belief because it's

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ingrained in you and in your soul so it is real yes uh it's hard to trust yourself yeah yeah well because you can't turn off like the questioning of our human brain can I

Haunted house history

tell you one more thing yeah before we get into this of course It's relatively quick but so I had that spooky experience of seeing myself in the mirror and being like Oh my God is this me am I a childhood home while I was home for Easter I also had another experience and I ran into an owner like one of the owners who had sold their land for my house to be developed so remember how I was like no one in our neighborhood Knows Why multiple houses are haunted no one knows why my house is haunted because we know the people who own the land for Generations right and nothing has ever happened that we know of right ran into her

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and I was like oh I've been hoping that like one day I'd get to run into you did anything spooky ever happen on the land when you were growing up and she was like what do you mean and I was like well I don't know I didn't want to tell her like our house was haunted yeah it's just like well there was a house down the street from us I don't know if you heard but like 10 15 years ago they actually had to have an exorcism on the house like a priest had to come yes describing some of the things that were happening and she was like oh my gosh and I for a minute I thought she was gonna be like no that's so weird and really dismiss it she didn't though I wrote down something she told me because I didn't want to forget any of them oh my gosh she said that the house she grew up in so her parents who owned the land she said things did happen a lot in that house she doesn't know about the land below the Farmland that was turned into this development of 30 houses um but she does have some ghost stories from her own

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childhood home she said that the basement was so spooky and she would not be able to go down there without her heart racing and as a kid she kind of was just like this basement's so creepy but maybe I'll grow out of it and she said as an adult still and she's she's probably she's got to be in her 50s or 60s now she said her heart will heart palpitations she cannot as an adult go into that basement she's just like everything in her body her whole fight or flight oh okay so that house is still there you've seen that house the house is still there okay yeah wow in Vermont maybe we'll drive by it if you wait yeah oh with me ever she said also they would come home in bureaus would just be flipped like huge pieces of furniture would just be turned upside down that is life would go on and off which is like the most benign part of all this she said lights would Flicker and then she said that one time her brother had a

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bunch of toy models all set up on the ground on the floor I don't like where this is going a huge heavy mirror well no toys came to life thank God that's what you were thinking huge heavy mirror came off like flew off of the wall like forward into the room smashed down and basically broke all of his toy models and then they go in they pick up the mirror because it made a huge noise and everything is broken below they pick up the mirror the mirror isn't shattered at all and it's not ripped like it was a giant heavy mirror yeah there's no rip in the wall like it was picked up it came undone like and thrown it was perfect all of the things that that were locking the mirror into the wall were still in place it was picked up and removed it chalked down onto the toy models oh my gosh so actually I think there's a poltergeist that's living in the neighborhood that also sounds so evil I

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mean to flip dressers to flip Furniture upside down and oh my gosh I know that this is It's terrifying but for you to finally there's so many things that you're putting together in your life right now I know it's just like I was information seeking over yeah I was like give me give me all the answers everything is coming full circle you're getting answers to questions you have had your entire life yeah or things that I just had assumed like we I mean we had just from what I had been told yeah there was nothing spooky or Supernatural about the land we were not an anomaly so no you're not straight turns out the first house on that land was very possible wow that's a lot of stuff and I think still has stuff because she was like I can't go in that basement I do not like that basement we should have her on the show we should do a campfire stories where all of your neighbors and this woman come on to tell their stories

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yeah you have to say how many houses away or like what mileage from my house you are that's the only requirement come on I gotta love where exactly it's pinpointed we'll do yeah stories freaking amazing yeah wow my dad I was with my dad when we ran into her and they were just kind of like catching up a little bit and I totally interrupted and was like ask the question excuse me my dad was looking at me like what the heck we're like talking about family members and I'm like so there was a demon down the road not at all not at all I think he thought I was gonna talk about the podcast but I didn't at all I was just trying to get get answers some interviewing trying to get answers you're an investigator

History of Edinburgh closes

um okay well I have a really interesting story to tell you okay I'm excited to hear what we're learning about well teach us

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teacher Sabrina of course I did a you know big history Deep dive once again I think you're just a historian at this point paranormal enthusiasts second historian first I researcher really appreciate history buff title well before I tell you what I specifically researched I'm gonna tell you a story okay as The Story Goes there was a young woman who traversed many C's making her way all the way to the land of Scotland her travels were long tireless she arrived weary but the greenery and Landscaping before her brought life back into her eyes is our future the opportunity is endless and then she was reminded of her purpose her journey was not over no she had miles to go she was to arrive at a place named Edinburgh a place rich with history both past and future potential

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perhaps you would make a name for herself perhaps she would be featured in a paper and become the notorious the incredible the dazzling Sabrina Diana broga [Laughter] dazzling I like that um that's a joke but also kind of a true story um it's not that's real well it's real to me well I did okay so when I was a senior in high school um We performed a play called 12 incompetent men and women which is spoof off of 12 Angry Men and we flew to Edinburgh and performed in The Fringe Festival there and my mom loves to tell me that she loves to say that I was featured in a paper and very specifically mentioned for my performance and I swear I was like that is not true and she goes yeah they specifically

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mentioned you they they said your performance was great and I was like no they didn't sure enough we found the article and it truly just lists my name as the character that I played as well along along with everyone else who was in the play and like the character they played and she was a proud parent so she she remembered it the way that she wanted she wrote rewrote history a little bit I was trying to find him my mom did send me the article so I'll try to find it and we can uh put it in here but anyway that was just you know a little teaser into my life and also inspired because I've always been fascinated with that area I did a lot of history tours when we were there so when I saw this story I was like hell yeah this is exciting but it's also really dark and sad so way before I stepped foot into Edinburgh there was a whole lot of stuff that happened obviously history hmm you know yeah the world is time though as we just talked about so this is the kind of story that has happened not only

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in the history of Edinburgh but kind of all over the world it's something we have talked about in a lot of different stories it's a story of poverty plagues and murder so we begin 300 million years ago back in that time there were a bunch of volcanoes that erupted and flowed violently over the lands forming three volcanic Hills Arthur's seat Carlton Hill and Castle Rock and I'm pretty sure I hiked Arthur Street seat when I was there and we did like a sunrise hike after those volcanic eruptions settle there was a glacier that came in and split on Castle Rock Hill so that it carved like two valleys with a big volcanic Rock Ridge in the middle and that Ridge is where Edinburgh was built it already feels pretty magical yeah very based on that yeah and also they built a castle like right on top so even more beautiful even more and so it was naturally sloped so they

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built the castle at top of it and then kind of going down from it was a really long road called The Royal Mile and there were just a ton of offshooting streets alleys there was something called winds and they were winding streets that were public through ways but this is I think something that has been portrayed in a lot of different stories and history often it was the castle and then the lower you went the more impoverished the community so it went the castle then it went you know the Court members and then it went the middle class and then it went to the very very poor also this is really fun fact Edinburgh was a home to the world's first skyscrapers because you know how the city was built on these ridges so a lot of the homes that they started building down below were really low to the ground and so they would stack houses on top of one another sometimes 14 to 16 stories high

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they were making apartment complexes yeah or apartment complexes or even a thing but it sounds like in a really shady way yeah I mean they lasted ish I mean actually they're pretty they're sturdy enough that they served as the foundation for the Royal exchange which still there today so they were doing something right okay so they're these are the first skyscrapers technically in the world and the very first official or or acknowledged skyscraper wasn't built until 1885 in Chicago and this is like the 1500s the 16th century or earlier so way ahead of their time okay so I said that they're so the wins which are the public Wayfarers there's these are different types of streets so there's the winds courts entries and the close and the closest were private roads with locked doors or gates at the entrance which sadly is where the poor and impoverished lived so these are the high-rise buildings they're super congested lots of people kind of

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squeezed in there and the gates could be locked at night to keep the so-called undesirables in their closes which reminds me of the Titanic when they start closing the gates yeah okay uh it's just I don't know what to say it's awful it's sad and it gets even more sad sad so this is where our story takes place a close Mary Kings close every street was named after a notable person or profession and Mary King was a woman kind of way ahead of her time most of the streets were but hardly any of the streets were named after women but this one was she when she got married kept her maiden name again way ahead of her time and she had her own business she was a fabric Merchant she was incredibly successful and she and her husband had four children together

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her husband Thomas Nemo was a voting member on the Edinburgh Council and when he tragically passed away in 1629 he left the seat to his wife then Mary King was able to Advocate and vote on the Affairs of the city and look out for those who were less fortunate so she was doing a lot of good she was also you know a boss Imam and helping people when she died in 1644 the city renamed this particular close after her and I think it was before it was named after her it was named after a man named Andrew King but they weren't related and I also wonder how Andrew King felt about the fact that they were like sorry you're out Mary's in he got booted out yeah okay so basically there are a ton of closes in this time this is just one of them so it's like one Long Street with all these high rises a lot of poor impoverished people living here but this

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story is kind of specifically focused on Mary's King Mary Kings close but it also applies to kind of all of the closest during this time in the 16th century the population of Edinburgh was growing rapidly I think there were 15 000 citizens in 1550 and despite being a relatively large city they were running out of space for people and this kind of reminds me of like overcrowding in a lot of the prisons or psychiatric facilities that we've talked about and this is why they had to build all the houses on top of each other and it kind of created this underground feeling and it also gives off a Corrine would hate this it's unhygienic type of energy

Plague and sanitation

uh do they just put their P buckets out the window and just like I have 14 stories I truly I have written here's a question that the answer Korean you will either love but also hate and the

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question is what do you think it meant when someone yelled garduloo guardi Lou yeah gardener it means the Lou is now exiting the window and coming down for your head correct you are very right it was the phrase called out when someone was going to enter the empty their chamber pots out of their Windows into the street below so it was like and then everyone on the street would run and run away so they wouldn't get it's just like I know going to the bathroom is just it's a thing that all animals all living things basically experience but it's just so weird for me to think about how as humans we have these like social constructs and we we view ourselves a certain way and we have all these hierarchies and yet we're throwing our piss out the window I think about that a lot at this is weird but like when I used to work in a

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corporate world you know like you there'd be someone who's so much higher up and like had so much power and authority over you and then you're like sitting in a bathroom stall just like releasing your innards together it's weird I mean it it humbles us right we're all humans yeah oh which reminds me I have to tell you the story I can't do it on here it's too soon okay maybe maybe in a future encounter it's been three days since that's all that's the clue and that's all people need to know um okay so like I said there's very little to no sanitation there's poop pee excrements just flowing the streets and they're maybe 16 plus people squeezed into one tiny room so this just like this area is just overcrowding it is there's no hygiene no Sanitation

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and very little food so these are I'm gonna list a couple things it also sounds disease ridden with that many people you are just reading my mind today history buff Corinne has entered the chat yes okay so I'm gonna list a couple things that we're going against those living in the close poverty poor sanitation it's crowded there's little food there's lack of care from those who are in power or in the like Elite of the society all of which led to famine starvation dirt rats disease and murder it was said that the place was so overcrowded and unmanaged that it was the perfect place for predators to prowl and murderers to hunt there were people disappearing every day and if it's just like no one really seemed to care or that those who did care couldn't find help in order to find their loved ones and naturally the 1500s 1600s it is impossible to discuss those without discussing the plagues

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because there were numerous diseases and plagues that killed thousands didn't they all come in on rats pretty much exactly my goodness Karen we're there did you do something did you research I'll be quiet no oh it's amazing I mean that's that's the captain I mean that's why I said in the beginning too this is one of those stories that starts out very very similar to so many others yeah once you know about One plague and the poverty in one area you kind of no it everywhere you can guess the rest yes there were two massive plagues during this time in Edinburgh one of them was like the 1400s I believe and they recovered from that but then the summer of 1645 came one of the most devastating plagues because they were not just one plagues that ravished the area but two um it was hot cramped rats and sewage

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occupied as much space as humans and the two plagues were ravishing the city simultaneously it was the Bubonic plague and the pneumonic plagues so mnemonic plague which I had never heard of was a terrible form of pneumonia which you know showed itself in severe coughing that caused internal bleeding blackening of the skin uh and then even though that's terrible even more terrible was the Bubonic plague which caused the infected to break out in pus-filled boils that could grow to the size of an orange and then burst and spread making the disease even more deadly oh it's so gross it's so and I love Dr pimple popper but not like I do not like these pus-filled no sacks sacks yeah that's um they are gross yeah

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um let me find I have pictures for this next part of the boy of the boy actually no but I'm kind of interested your timing you're like let me find the pictures of what I'm scared put a trigger warning in the beginning for that um no but okay so these plagues are just wiping out so many people but specifically those living in impoverished communities there was no cure there was no real understanding of what was happening and entire family's entire communities were dying and you know you might wonder was anyone attempting to Aid these sick and it's a great question I will tell you

The plague doctors

shoot I should have asked that question if it's okay was anyone helping all these people thank you for asking that's a great question Karen there were doctors for medical professionals but sometimes they were just as terrifying as the plague itself they you know

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sometimes weren't doctors really with a passion to heal the patients but more had the task to help keep those living up on like you know higher up on the Royal Nile alive so they were kind of like all about containing the disease rather than really helping also they looked like Monsters these men were masked The Masks were made of rubber with long curved beaks and large round eye holes carved out the front which you've all seen the photo of this I this is the photo that I was going to show not the boils yes I told my friend Allison her boyfriend Daniel it works in the medical field and I don't remember what event they were going to but I suggested that he dress up like that and I don't know if he did I think they were looking for those types of masks because they're so freaky they are so freaky that actually isn't a terrible costume idea for us for one year oh yeah maybe one day we'll do it we'll

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dress up as oh you know what would be fun is what is doing sort of like a like a good couple costume or like best friend costume we're still we're a couple yeah we're just different here's how much of a couple we are you're our anniversary is the same day that you and Nick got married yeah like we just share so many of like the Milestones you have in your romantic relationship just so happen to also fall on Milestones with me I don't know if that just means that we're also a couple or if you just favor big moments on certain days yeah I don't know we will find out yes in the future a pairing costume could be cool to be like you you both choose to dress up as the same thing but from different decades you know like someone like doctors yeah like someone dresses as that and then someone else trusts as a

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doctor from like 19. 40. yeah that's a good idea it's also good you could be a cross costume yeah oh my gosh see that's how much we are partners it's the same idea at the same time uh okay so they look like that they're a bit scary people are also dying so rapidly that they are just being hauled onto carts like this and stacked on top of one another some of them weren't even dead yet and like you know are buried before they're actually dead because they just look so sick they're just like being tossed you know without really any care the very first plague doctor in the summer of 1645 his name was John policius and almost immediately he died after taking on the role because the job was deadly literally right because they can't protect no one

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really knew what was going on yeah they still barely do and I do want to clarify that you know yes they look like Monsters and maybe their task was to specifically protect the you know more Elite of society a lot of these doctors sacrifice their own well-beings to help contain or also Aid the sick and the way that they knew how or thought that they could the next plague doctor his name was George Ray and he actually was pretty diligent with his work he would go house to house he would land the boils of the sick so he was Dr pimple popper back then but he was front lines you know physically having to handle the illness he was you know the doctor who wore the long beak mask the long black robe the very traditional plague doctor outfit of the day and a fun fact those masks were filled with spices and flower petals and it was like to smell that and they believed that it would help prevent breathing in the

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illness which unfortunately did not work for the first doctor but it did work for George interesting yeah but sadly George's story at the end is very sad so despite his efforts the sick were still sick and those who were not sick were now getting sick and you know everyone was just dying the Council of Edinburgh did not know what to do and then someone had an idea what if they bricked up the area of Mary King's clothes to prevent any of those living there from entering or exiting contain the plague to just that area and if you think about the repercussions of that it would mean that everyone who lived in the clothes would die this is horrible but it's reminding me of so many other places right like if we think about tuberculosis that happened at so many hospitals just like put everybody away it's it's quarantined but unfortunately for this it sounds like there were a lot of people that weren't sick yet that were

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just about to be inevitably TR become ill plagued plagued plagued yeah I mean okay so here's the one I'll just say records during this time was not necessarily a priority unless you were a king or a queen and then of course the records are written so there's a lot of debate as to whether or not the council actually moved forward with this callous plan some say yes some are actually certain it was done that the council trapped the innocent men women and children in these nearly underground cities and Brick by Brick covered every entrance and exit until they were certain that the plague had passed others say that the story of closing in and trapping those in Mary King's close is just a myth that it was either created by you know the over-exaggerating of story telling over the years or perhaps it was a story that the Edinburgh Council told the more Elite

43:00

members of society in order to reassure them that they would be okay and the plague was contained Gary I can't under it reminds me a little bit of handmaid's tale too right where it's like you would think like wouldn't they see stuff wouldn't they know wouldn't they make moves and take action but it's like no you hear something and you're like that's wild and then you hear another thing and you're like man things are really getting bad huh and then eventually it's too late it's it feels like it happened so quickly but yeah of all it did and it does yeah there is a part of me after I tell you this little fact that that makes me believe that they actually did trap the uh people in the closest because after the plague George Ray that plague doctor somehow miraculously survived which I don't think the Edinburgh Council expected to happen and

44:00

he survived and the City of Edinburgh refused to pay him so he died before ever seeing a single Cent John that makes me burn a fury burn deep inside me yes but it's like what can you do like that's one of the things where it's like God you just want revenge on everyone who wronged you but then it's like what are you gonna do you're just gonna get yourself killed and you have to live well to die well I learned that in my class you got to be at peace to be able to be the best version of your soul and spirit self Live Well to die well I like that okay well a lot of these people are not living though nor are they dying though um no so yeah there's no way to actually

Mary King's Close legends

know for certain if these people in the closest were trapped or not unless I don't know we are able to talk to our ancestors from that time or I don't know get a time machine or we can maybe ask the ghosts because ever

45:00

since the 17th century people have complained of hearing scratching coming from the other sides of the brick walls like people are trapped trying desperately to scratch claw or dig their way out there is one story that is they believe it is a child specifically trying to climb their way out again it's really hard to know um but like I said with the carts being piled up it's there's a lot of people who are buried or burned who were not actually dead yet so it's possible that the scratching is the like you know of those types of spirits who were buried and tried to scratch their ways out ways out their way out but you know died sadly also after the plagues Mary King's close developed a very haunted reputation like almost immediately and this is what I love about this is you know records are really poor back

46:00

then unless it was done by the you know more Elite in Royals so the only reason we know all of this is because King James VI who went on to become King James the first the king of England was obsessed with witches and loved ghost stories yes he's one of those he's one of us he was so obsessed that he made sure any ghostly encounter or story was documented snaps for him what a man I didn't do most read much research into like what his you know his Reign was like it's very possible he was not a great guy aside from this fun fact oh and here I am cheering him on I probably covered him in the Tower of London story and I don't remember I don't know there's so many names I know it's okay okay so this is where this story comes in and I also heard it on the haunted places podcast episode about Mary King's close the story takes place in 1696 40 years

47:00

after the plague a man named Thomas bought a new house for his wife Orinda and their family but when Orinda found out where it was she was terrified the home was in Mary King's clothes she did not want to live in such close quarters or in a place that saw so Much Death according to Charlotte when she arrived at the home she was met by a neighbor maid and this maid told Charlotte that the homes were haunted that Spirits moved objects groaned in the night sometimes their body parts would show up and Charlotte was so terrified of ghosts because this is the time of you know accusing people of Witchcraft and Satanism and burning of witches I thought you were I thought you were going to say this is the time that people were really afraid of ghosts I'm like I'm pretty sure that time is also now I think it's all the time yes but this is like very rooted in religion and believing that Spirits were

48:00

those trapped in hell trying to get out and wreak havoc on Earth so she was so terrified Charlotte that she quit her job and she was like I'm sorry you're moving here and I cannot live here with you I just can't I'm too scared so now Orinda is so heartbroken this maid who had been with them their whole lives is now gone and she has to move into a notoriously known to be haunted neighborhood so they move in and she and Thomas pray before bed they slept okay and they go to church the next day and asked the congregation to also pray for them and protect them when they returned home Thomas went to go take a nap as Orinda read from the Bible and all of a sudden she heard a man clearing his throat so without looking up she thinks it's Thomas and she's like what do you need but Thomas didn't respond she looks up and loses her breath because a gray face

49:00

was standing before her it was a translucent man clearly in pain this man wanted something he was groaning and moaning and reaching out to Orinda until his hand touched her shoulder and she screamed and next thing she know she was passed out waking up to Thomas checking on her I thought she was gonna wake up possessed for a second oh well that okay oh my God does that happen too not to her but ah as Thomas and her argued about the experience because again Thomas is not one to believe in the spirits The Gray Man appears again and Orinda tells him to look so Thomas now they both are looking at this man and all of a sudden out of the man's head comes the spirit of a child's head so it's this weird morphed I'm thinking like Mr floops animals creatures heads sticking out of

50:00

heads limbs kind of all coming out of the spirits and these hands start reaching out and grabbing arinda and Thomas and finally Thomas is like begging please leave please leave but all of a sudden there's a hand that goes into Thomas's chest and he starts to embody something else it's chaos and his he like looks at Orinda his voice is different his mannerisms are different but his eyes are his and Orinda can tell he needs help he's in pain so Orinda prays and prays and finally she grabs the ghostly arm that is reaching into her husband rips it from him in which you hold back she finds her hands covered in a weird liquid and what she is holding in her hand is not the hand of the spirit but her husband Thomas's heart

51:00

I'm not kidding but I will say that part of the story that part of the story I very much believe has been um dramatized this this feels like a bedtime story that they would have told five-year-old kids going to bed and been like I don't know why my child's so misbehaved and won't sleep through the night after telling him right yeah but this is what was documented in King James's uh you know ghostly diary she's um wow so that is horrifying but understand the anger of the spirits they were all discarded there they were left and became this glob of uh discarded humans and now yeah they need to bring others in they're gripping for to get out yeah or they're angry and they're just wanting to kill everyone now it's it's hard because it's like these stories are so

52:00

spooky and I I keep feeling myself being like Oh my God how horrible these gifts are so scary but then I'm like wait a second but you literally just told me the most horrific background story of why they why these people died and it's so sad and their souls I feel so bad for so I'm like I'm struggling right now between how scary the haunting is I mean why why they're there and they don't have to be mutually exclusive like the hauntings can be terrifying but the reasoning doesn't have to be terrifying like like you said these people were you know dying and confused and didn't know what was happening to them and then they weren't really being well taken care of some of them were just being thrown into body dumps and not really checked to see if they were dead so there is this desire of like help me help me I want answers I don't know what happened I'm so confused as you can tell it's very safe to say that uh Mary King's close is haunted and is very spooky years later a lot of the

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closest kind of became abandoned and dilapidated um so a lot of them were demolished but those that remained including Mary King's close served as the foundation for the Royal exchange that was built in 1753 so now they are truly Subterranean and Underground and you can visit them you can take tours and learn so much more this is one thing that was really frustrating is I feel like the organizations who run the tours have done a really really good job of making sure information about Mary King's clothes and the underground history is kind of a well-kept secret so that they can share it so basically that is all the history that I know but I know there's so much more what I do know is that there are public records of some

The ghost of Annie

Spirits there's one very very well known Spirit it is that of a young girl named Annie so back in 1992 a woman named Aiko gibbo who is a Japanese medium visited

54:00

Mary Kings close she was on a tour and when they approached one specific room she was like got feelings of dread and sadness it was so heavy that she was like I cannot step inside this room but then she sensed a child and like a child who needed something so she gathered the will to step into this room and finally communicated with this young girl she found the little girl crying in the corner of the room her name was Annie and she told AKO that she couldn't find her family and she was very very sad she was around nine years old and was very confused about her death or where her family was and so since then it has been hypothesized that she was infected by the plague possibly abandoned or taken away from her family in fear of them becoming contaminated there's been a lot of attempts to discover who she is

55:00

but again there's not a ton of Records there's some theory that she's perhaps the daughter of Gene McKenzie because her daughter was unnamed and around that same age it's just so sad to think about all the kids that probably experienced something very similar to her just being abandoned and so scared and yeah but there is some hope in the story because this little girl told AKO that she was also sad because she couldn't find her doll so Aiko went out and shopped and found a new doll for Annie they called the doll Tartan Barbie and when she received the doll Annie was so much happier and the room got lighter there was less like red and sadness and since then there has been like a world movement where people who from all over the world come bring toys dolls gifts letters all types of things for

56:00

Annie and they leave them in her room and once a year all the dolls and other toys are donated to the sick kid friends Foundation all except the original doll so sweet I love this I know and then this is the drama okay on April 17th of 2019 they received a panicked radio call from a guide informing them that Annie's doll was no longer in her usual spot oh they spent hours searching the entire site and could not find the doll did they think someone stole it is that sort of what or another ghost took it I don't know but a whole like social media movement was formed there was a hashtag bring the doll or bring back the doll it was everyone was like we need to find this doll people started doing research trying to find what the doll was so they could replace it and they ended up finding that it was part of the daisy doll

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Airline collection designed by a fashion designer and in the 1960s and so they were able to find and replace the doll oh so they never found the original they never found the original okay well at least they found a replacement yes that's good to appease Little Miss Annie so Annie's a lot happier now um people who visit have had encounters with Annie uh another ghost at the close is believed to be the very last resident of Mary King's close Andrew Chesney he was apparently forced to leave the clothes um and he was apparently very proud of his thunderbox which was like his toilet so he oh he was known it sounds like something my dad would name but this is even better like you know the Thunder box you know how you hide in your corner so that the people outside don't see you nude yeah this man Andrew would specifically

58:00

open his doors while he was on his thunderbox and wave at people as they pass by okay so that was his either he thought it was hilarious or that was a kink or both I don't know or both started as hilarious and then became hmm he likes some people laugh at him yeah so his Spirit has been seen wandering through the alleys sometimes he looks worried other times he's just going about his ghostly life um there's also a Woman in a Black Dress often seen and some people say she's the spirit of Mary King herself but I think that's just like wishful thinking there's no way to actually know um sometimes stones are thrown um people experience sudden drops in temperature the feelings of being touched emotional swings there have been footsteps heard in empty rooms there are glimpses of things moving in the shadows

59:00

mysterious lights apparitions you know all the typical hauntings so maybe you all should check it out yourself like I said there aren't many um articles or a ton of information about Mary King's clothes specifically unless you go and do the tour yourself but there is a novel which I saw in my research that I'm like oh I should definitely read this it is called The Haunting of Henderson close written by Catherine Cavendish and it is a fictional story inspired by a lot of the stories of life in the closest during this time and it has a devil or two and is like Paranormal and spooky and has 4.2 stars on Amazon and I might be reading it and then to end that is the list I will show you a photo let me of what the close looks like this is just one of them oh

1:00:00

so it's completely Underground I want to go all of the underground towns and cities those things just start like there's one in San Francisco that we covered there's so many all over the place that's it's just so spooky I really want to go explore but like on a guided tour I don't want to be by myself yeah yeah I'll clarify before you take me there for you like you said you would go I just send you down good luck yeah survive the night but yeah that's the story of me King's close dang I mean fascinating it is I mean it is true what you said like there's so many elements to the story that we've heard before with other historical stories from this time period or really just so many different terms it doesn't matter if it was the Bubonic plague or tuberculosis or coronavirus like there's there's so many things that repeat throughout history

1:01:00

and there's so much sadness and with that oftentimes comes ghost stories

Listener stories and closing

so yeah I mean this is just like what this kind of reminds me of like the catacombs too where it's like how many people how many spirits are are there currently and how many spirits like have the opportunity to move on but haven't and could you could like I'm just like is there ever going to be a moment where this place isn't haunted where these Spirits do find peace and they do get to move on where some powerful medium comes and whisks them all away or is this like always going to be some sort of stain and then if we think about time and how time isn't linear like whatever I was just gonna say this yeah yeah what if hauntings are forever and those Spirits did move on because there's the timelines are

1:02:00

continuous yeah yeah uh I don't know yeah I I am hopeful because when I was doing my research it didn't seem like there are ghosts that are angry per se or really devastated I mean minus Annie who now has been abused a little bit so hopefully that I don't know that applies to all the spirits down there that they are finding some sense of Peace within a ghostly community totally yeah that's actually kind of fun like they have their own little commune there's there's so much room for activities they have a whole house is down there so many apartments do you think everybody still lives in their same house or in spirit form they're like I'm gonna upgrade to my neighbor's house I always thought their curtains were quite to buy I mean

1:03:00

considering how jam-packed all the spaces were I don't know I know that's true that would kind of actually suck if they're all just still crams together and I do Wonder from a spirit perspective if they're haunting the basically like ruins that we see today or the dilapidated version of it or if they're experiencing it the same way that they were when they died hopefully I don't know hopefully they get to see it at its prime like before all the illnesses before yeah well even today it's it's kind of very well I maintained is not the right word but they've restored it to what they believe it looked like minus the running rats and sewage down the streets yeah okay well I have a story from a listener okay this is from Shona Shauna not certain how to say your name I

1:04:00

apologize Shauna seems right for like okay we'll stick with Shawna okay hello ladies from Bonnie Scotland it's raining shock horror I'm listening to your most recent encounters about the person who witnessed someone feeling sick on a ghost tour could taste blood Etc and it made me think of something that happened on one that I had been on a few years ago I finally got my then boyfriend to agree to go on a ghost hunt he didn't believe etc etc probably why he's now an ex now first you need to know he was not the brightest spark and it was a little bit dense but he was pretty and I'm not being mean but I can't because he cheated this is important to the story though okay oh my God I already love this even if it wasn't I was I I like knowing all this stuff me too all the details we

1:05:00

went to Mary's King close in Edinburgh this is where there is a town under the City of Edinburgh and I believe it's been sealed to keep the plague at Bay anyways the Ghost Hunt leader was a psychic and he begun by placing us in a circle and saying a prayer everyone was silent and holding hands in the circle the leader went on to tell us what would happen on our overnight ghost hunt it finished and he asked if anyone had any questions and my boyfriend chirps up in this absolute belter of a statement sorry I didn't catch all you said because all the horses they're pretty noisy nice but dim boyfriend looked so innocent as I whispered what are horses there are no horses in Edinburgh City Center at midnight in 2015. oh the psychic was so in love as we were standing as where we were standing was at the stabling area where the horses would be tied up needless to say my

1:06:00

bloke was teacher's pet and upfront with the guy and embraced his new gift like he owned think about it later I said to him did you not realize when we were in the city that it was odd to hear horses trotting and neighing and he said no I didn't think of it until you said that to me guess what he still didn't believe in the Supernatural how okay I have to say to that he does he's just scared he doesn't want to say it yeah he's either scared or he's just so incredibly stubborn that he won't go back on he won't change an opinion on something even though it was very clear everyone acknowledged his statement was him hearing something that was not there okay yeah okay it's not like everyone just teamed up with Shauna and was like let's make this guy feel like there's no horses here and when they clearly are like that would be so bizarre anyway Shawna Gladius next I have so

1:07:00

many stories that I will send on at some point but you've made me giggle remembering his innocent face asking to retell the rules as the horses were too loud thanks for entertaining us through lockdown me and my house ghosts say hi love Shawna and ghosty Shauna I want to know about your ghosty yeah yeah and play this for ghosties so that ghosty knows that we ready yeah we gave ghosty a shout out I do love it sounds like the house ghost and Chana live together in harmony yeah it does yeah um a nice coexistence yes I simultaneously love this story and want to shake shawna's ex-boyfriend and be like how how can you yeah give the reasons yeah I want to hear a list of why how does he explain that experience then does he just has he just convinced himself that those horses were real

1:08:00

yeah will he even entertain yeah what is his what's his argument because it sounds like he probably is just saying no no no it can't be I it also makes me wonder why certain people have experiences at places where other people don't like Shauna seems to be in tune with the spiritual world and totally believes but her boyfriend who doesn't believe and as far as we know was not entombed the spiritual world is the one person who had the experience there and there was a site like the tour guide was psychic yeah yeah and it sounds like the tour guide didn't know I mean new obviously what was around that they were where they were in the city but it sounds like her boyfriend didn't know you know what maybe it's because I bet he was the only skeptic on the tour and so the ghosts were like the horses targeted him make him fully believe cue the horses the whole performance there's just like there's a ghost from

1:09:00

2017 with a Boombox that's just playing horse noises I was picturing it like a play like there's a stage manager and a few the horses they have their their headset and their clipboard and they're running around yeah the horses are in hair and makeup quick get them out well well what a fascinating yes episode I feel like there's so many interesting ghost stories that we hear every single week and not all of them necessarily make it on my list of oh I really want to go see that place and I feel like this is on my list there's so many places in Scotland but Edinburgh specifically that are haunted yeah and totally I would love to do a little trip there maybe you and I can go together we get to yeah Edinburgh so long as I said that all right you'll learn once yeah it will still

1:10:00

come yeah thank you everyone for listening come to our live show in New Jersey on April 26th and and then I don't know join our pyramid scheme tell everyone about our show join our patreon if you want to listen to our live show and come join campfire stories on patreon watch us on YouTube write and review on iTunes or those other things I feel like no one likes those starts with this part anyway no but we say it every time so maybe one one time someone will listen to the end they're cooking they forgot they can't get to their phone yeah yeah like what's even going on well we love you yes we love and we love our editor yes thank you Christina shout out Christina yes and we will see you on the other side