Haunted objects are fascinating and, I believe, real! Cherise O. Williams joins us and shares a witch’s perspective. How do they get haunted? How can you protect yourself? Plus, much more on this edition of The Paranormal Podcast.
Find Cherise’s book on the subject here at Amazon: https://amzn.to/3TS1A8e
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TRANSCRIPT
Jim Harold (00:00):
The Witch’s Guide to Haunted Objects on today’s edition of the Paranormal Podcast.
Announcer (00:19):
This is the Paranormal Podcast with Jim Harold
Jim Harold (00:23):
Haunted objects. Those are some of the most fascinating things in the world of the Paranormal. And today we’ve got a great guest to talk about that subject, Cherise O. Williams, because she has a recent book out. It is called The Witches’ Guide to Haunted Objects, and we’re so glad to have her with us today. Cherise is a paranormal investigator, researcher, and tarot reader with over 20 years of experience by pairing spirituality in witchcraft with a level headed approach to the paranormal. Cherise has a unique perspective on the field when she’s not talking to spirits or pulling cards. She enjoys being with her family, spending time in nature, and taking naps, and we’re so glad to have her with us today. Cherise, welcome to the program. Thank you for joining us.
Cherise O. Williams (01:07):
Hello. Thank you for having me.
Jim Harold (01:09):
So I don’t know for sure if when people think of witches that they necessarily think of haunted objects. You would think that that would be a natural connection, but I don’t know that everybody makes that. Can you talk about how you got your interest in haunted objects and how it relates back to witchcraft?
Cherise O. Williams (01:28):
Absolutely. So I always say witchcraft in the paranormal are kind of two sides to the same coin. When you think about it, when you’re practicing witchcraft, you are working with different energies. You are communicating with spirits a lot of the time, whether it’s your own spirit guides or even just the spirits of these nature objects. And when we are investigating the Paranormal, you’re communicating with spirits, you’re connecting with different energies. So they all kind of fuse together. And a lot of the protection techniques that people use for themselves when they’re out ghost hunting, they’re actually kind of doing some witchcraft, whether they’re really aware of it or not. So I had initially written the book, The Witches’ Guide to Ghost Hunting, which has all kinds of different techniques that you can incorporate from witchcraft into your paranormal and also from your paranormal experience into witchcraft. Like when you’re pulling tarot cards or even meditating, you can have a spirit box going.
Jim Harold (02:27):
By the way, everybody, I want to tell you, we have a friend on the other end, Cherise’s dog, Lucy. She’s a little animated today, very excited about the interview. I understand. And to boot, I have a reason to believe my dogs are going to be making a little bit of noise today too. So many of us out there are dog owners, so please, please forgive us if you hear a dog here and there just adds to the frivolity and the fun of the show.
Cherise O. Williams (02:51):
It does.They just want to get in on it.
Jim Harold (02:53):
Now, when it comes to haunted objects, how does an object get haunted anyway? I know you cover that in the book.
Cherise O. Williams (03:03):
Yeah, there’s a lot of different ways that they can become haunted. A lot of it is very similar to how a house or a building or location can become haunted as well. So for instance, a residual haunting, if there’s an object that is in, say there’s a dresser and a murder happened in the same room that the dresser was in, that dresser could potentially absorb some of that energy of that moment. And so then the next owner of the dresser may kind of pick up on some weird things. Maybe at a certain time they hear a scream in the distance or something similar to a residual haunting in a building maybe where a murder happened. There’s that energy that just gets permeated into an object that might be in the area. Other types of residual hauntings are when people’s energy, it doesn’t have to be something traumatic because a lot of the time people think, oh, a haunting has to occur because of something traumatic.
(04:02):
We’re constantly leaving our energy everywhere we go. It’s almost like little dust particles of energy wherever we’re at. And some people are really good at projecting that energy out, even if they’re not aware of it. So jewelry, for instance, that’s why you’ll find a lot of haunted jewelry is because if you think about it like a wedding ring, somebody’s wearing that their whole life and their energy is really getting imbued into that. So then in death, the jewelry gets sent to an antique store, somebody else purchases it, and maybe every time they wear it, they, I don’t know, get a craving to make bread or something very specific to the previous owner. And they’re like, this is weird. What is that? It may not necessarily be that former owner actively consciously haunting that object. It’s just their energy has been kind of infused into that object.
(04:48):
So that’s one way. Another way could be that a spirit purposely attaches itself to it. So this could again be maybe there’s somebody who has, we’ll use the jewelry again. They just really love that piece of jewelry in life, and so they want to kind of stick with it in depth and follow it around and make sure that it’s going to the right owner and that it’s being taken care of because they really loved that piece of jewelry. And then there’s also spirits who are a little more nefarious and they like to attach themselves to objects to be welcomed into people’s homes because I don’t think most of us are going around welcoming in more trickster spirits, more darker spirits. LIke, yeah, just come on in here! But if they’re attached to say a doll, which they seem to really like dolls, I think maybe because of the human similarities, doll looks like a human. And then also dolls are pretty unsuspecting. Like little kids play with dolls, so this isn’t evil. Bring it into your house. And so they kind of do that to kind of sneak in through the back door. And then some people purposely hot objects, they could put spirits into different objects, which is some witchcraft. You can put spirits into things.
Jim Harold (06:01):
So let me ask you this. I used to be a big fan of thrifting, of going out and buying old record players and all the cameras and just stuff like that. I just always enjoyed doing that. I like old stuff behind me. There’s a ton of old stuff behind me. You can’t see some of it, but there’s old radios and stuff like that. So I always love old stuff. But in recent years, I’ve becoming more leery about it for two reasons. One, my wife’s going to kill me. She says, stop bringing that old junk home. And the other part is –
Cherise O. Williams (06:37):
Sounds like my husband.
Jim Harold (06:40):
And on the other side, I worry, what am I going to bring with me? Now if somebody does love vintage stuff and wants to get it, is there anything that they can do to make sure that they don’t bring in more than they bargain for?
Cherise O. Williams (06:55):
Absolutely. First, I do want to say that a lot of the time if an object is haunted, just like a location, a lot of the time it’s just a residual energy. And some people may never pick up on that, depending on how sensitive you are to kind of sensing different energies. You could bring home an object that does have a residual energy or a residual haunting attached to it, and you’ll never know because you’re kind of more oblivious to energies and not as sensitive to it. It’s a little more rare. Again, just hauntings in buildings to have a conscious interactive entity that’s not super common. So I don’t want people to think like, oh my God, I can’t go antiquing anymore because every time I come home I’m bringing home the spirit. That’s not the case. You’re okay. But yeah, there are simple things that you can do.
(07:42):
You can do just kind of how you would cleanse a room or a space. You can do that with an object. So you can do sound cleansing with a singing bowl. You can do smoke cleansing, you can even use a selenite wand, which I don’t have with me, but you can use a selenite wand and kind of just wave that crystal around the object. Again, smoke cleansing. You can do different herbs, burn different herbs for cleansing and kind of waft it around the object to cleanse the energy. And if you are somebody who likes to say prayers or blessings, you can say that as you’re doing the cleansing. And when all else fails, you can just verbalize it. I think people don’t give their voice and their boundaries enough credit, literally simply saying, if there’s anything attached to this object, you’re not permitted to be attached to this. You cannot stay here. You have to go. And a lot of the time, energies will anticipate. Sometimes if they’re a little more aggressive or animated, it may take a little more than just setting a boundary to get rid of them. But yeah, it’s pretty simple actually. I think people overcomplicate things a lot of the time.
Jim Harold (08:51):
I love how you said that, that you have the power to basically more or less, some people use the phrase rebuke or tell something. It’s not welcome. I’ll give you an example. I interviewed years ago, the famous writer, Brad Steiger, who wrote probably 70 or 80 books on the paranormal. Unfortunately he has since passed, but he said he was working one night away, I think in his upstairs writing room or whatever, and something kept messing with him. It kept flipping pages and doing all this weird stuff, and he’s trying to meet a deadline and get some writing done, and basically he just said, cut it out and stop it. And it did. So I love that. I love that fact that you said that. Now what about this? I mean, there’s kind of thrill seekers out there and people say, hey, I want a haunted object. I want to get one. I want to get a haunted doll, a haunted mirror. I’m all into that. Tell me it’s haunted and I’ll pay double. Is that maybe a dangerous thing for people to do? What would you say?
Cherise O. Williams (09:53):
I think it can be dangerous. And it’s funny you bring that up because recently I dealt with two haunted antique art prints that I had to get rid of, and I’m somebody who has experience, and I was like, yeah, I can’t keep these anymore. Utilizing a technique that I write about in the book with my pendulum to find a haunted item at the antique store. I went in specifically, I want to find a haunted item so I can do some research on it. And I found two haunted art prints and I bring them home and I’m investigating them. And at first it seemed okay, I got the name Andrew come through on the spirit box multiple times, and the energy seemed all right. And then my son cut his finger really bad and had to get stitches. And I kind of jokingly said, I was like, oh, maybe it’s the ghost attached to the painting, kind of didn’t really think anything of it.
(10:52):
But then a few days later, I was doing a tarot reading and spirit box session with the objects and the energy had completely shifted to the point that literally the energy attached to the art was saying that it pretty much wanted suffering. I asked, is there some type of offering or something I can give you? And I pulled the 10 of Swords tarot card, which is not always the most pleasant card in the deck. I also got the devil card. It wasn’t good. And then the remarks coming through the spirit box as well. I was like, okay, this is maybe not so great. And I pulled back on investigating them. Long story short, and the month, maybe five weeks that I had the paintings, my son had to get stitches. He broke his toe, he had the stomach flu, and then he broke his arm.
(11:50):
And I’m level headed. I look for more mundane things before I look for, I don’t immediately jump to supernatural paranormal. I look for like, okay, let’s be logical about this. So the first couple of things that happened, I was like, okay, maybe he’s just having a string of bad luck, but between the communication that I’d had with the art, and then it was just one thing after another for my son, I was like, alright, I need to just get rid of these. If it were just me and my son wasn’t involved and wasn’t at the house, I maybe would’ve kept the art to investigate it further. But I was like, I’m just going to get rid of them. So I found another investigator and she took them in and I considered maybe I could just do a binding on the artwork or try to remove the entities from this.
(12:36):
But I did start to get the sense that maybe there were two different entities, and one of them was a little more mellow, the Andrew gentleman, it was a little more just mellow. And it was funny. I liked to take naps and he said he wanted to take a nap. He was done communicating with me. At one point, I was like, is there anything you need? And he said, I need a nap. I thought that was hilarious. And then I think that there is the more nefarious one. And so I didn’t feel fair. It didn’t feel right to remove, potentially remove a nice spirit just because of this one. So I was like, I’ll just give them to another investigator. And I think that’s the important thing to do is when you do bring in these items, if they are kind of causing some havoc and it feels like, okay, I don’t want to deal with this, or maybe I don’t have the experience to deal with this, make sure you get rid of them.
(13:23):
But that is something to be aware of because the more nefarious spirits do kind of sneak in. Because I had set the intention even when I was finding this haunted object that it was going to be one that was not malicious or not a trickster and wasn’t going to mess with us. I even set boundaries when I brought them into my house, and this entity was still able to squeeze its way in. So absolutely, I mean, if you’re going to be, whether investigating a location or bringing a haunted object into your house, I think it’s really important to know basic protection and cleansing techniques.
Jim Harold (13:59):
So there are different gradations of spirits. Many of them you can just say, Hey, you’re not coming in. Don’t follow this object in. They’ll respect that and walk away. But then there’s some more hardcore entities will say, I don’t care what you say, I’m going to do what I want to. Is that basically the story?
Cherise O. Williams (14:17):
Yeah. And if you look at humans too, there’s different types of humans. Some humans, you may have an interaction with them and you just have to tell them one time, Hey, I don’t really appreciate being spoken to that way. And they’re like, oh, I’m sorry. Okay, yeah, that’s fine. And then you have other people where it’s like they wake up with their mission to just jab at you every chance that they get. And it’s the same with spirits. Some are just like, they just want to do their own thing and just exist. And then other ones are like, I’m bored. What chaos can I cause today?
Jim Harold (14:45):
Well, what a delightful guest Cherise is, and we’ll be back with her right after these words. Our sponsor today, Grammarly, no matter what kind of work you do, how you communicate is key. A podcaster, an insurance agent, a real estate agent, a salesperson, whatever it might be, communication is key. And I use Grammarly for all different kinds of messages. And it’s because I believe in Grammarly. I trust Grammarly and it does a great job, because Grammarly is your AI writing partner to help you communicate more effectively and efficiently so you can make a bigger impact at work. Now, you might be saying, Jim, you’re just saying that because they’re buying this ad, and that is not the case. First of all, I was a paying user of Grammarly before they ever sponsored the shows. Years before. Secondly, I use it on my weekly email, for example, that I send out, although sometimes I’m not as good about sending it out as I should.
(15:47):
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Announcer (16:52):
If you love the Paranormal Podcast, be sure to check out Jim Harold’s Campfire where ordinary people share their extraordinary stories of ghosts, UFOs, cryptids and terrifying encounters. Find it for free wherever you listen to this podcast. Tune into Jim Harold’s Campfire today. Now we return to the Paranormal Podcast.
Jim Harold (17:13):
Now let’s get into it a little bit, because in the book here I’m looking at the table of contents. You talk about different kinds of haunted objects, and I have a show called Campfire, Jim Herald’s Campfire, where people call in and tell their stories. It’s probably my most popular show. And one of our all time great stories was about a haunted mirror. And actually the gentleman kept the mirror, which I was like, I don’t know if I would’ve kept that mirror, but to each his own. Tell us about haunted mirrors. I mean, why are mirrors in general so mystical? And talk to us about some haunted ones.
Cherise O. Williams (17:51):
Gosh, I don’t know why we have such a fascination with mirrors as the human race, but I mean fascination with reflections goes back all the way to Ancient Greece and Rome with Narcissus staring at his reflection in the pool of water and doing scrying in the water and everything. So we’ve long had this fascination with mirrors and with our reflections, which is really interesting. And I’ve lost my train of thought. Lemme back up.
Jim Harold (18:24):
I’m talking about the mirrors.
Cherise O. Williams (18:26):
Yeah, mirrors. I don’t know. I really don’t know the answer to why they can be so haunted. I think it is kind of, if you think about it, when we’re looking in a mirror, we spend so much time in mirrors, my bathroom mirror, I’m in there twice a day brushing my teeth, I’m washing my face, I’m putting makeup on. You’re constantly looking in this mirror and kind of putting your energy into it. And I feel like mirrors almost that can kind of create, okay, I don’t want to say that every mirror is a portal at all. That’s not what I’m saying. But I do think it kind of creates this interesting people just listening, can’t see what I’m doing with my hands, but it creates this interesting almost bubble of energy. Maybe that’s a good way to put it. Where the energy is just bouncing back and forth at each other, your reflection, your face, the energy, it’s just all being bounced around and it creates just sort of this maybe a soft spot in the fabric is a good way to put it. Not an actual portal, but just maybe more of this soft spot where maybe you can tap into the other side. And I think that’s why things like scrying work so well is because you literally are peering into the other side.
(19:40):
Mirrors are just spooky, man.
Jim Harold (19:42):
Well, I was going to ask you, I mean, what have been some of the things that haunted mirrors have done in the story that I was telling the guy bought this mirror kind of didn’t even intend, but the person kind of threw it in, said, I think this is meant for you at some kind of estate stale or rummage sale or something. And sure enough, entities started appearing out of it and it’s a wild story. So I guess my question to you is what are some of the stories or some of the anecdotes about some of the things mirrors have done, can do, that sort of thing?
Cherise O. Williams (20:17):
It does seem like a lot of the time mirrors, if there is an entity within the mirror, they want to bring people in through the mirror, which is really freaky. I was at McInteer Villa filming a documentary and I was with a fellow investigator named Nat, and she was doing scrying for the first time. I explained how to do it because in the McInteerr Villa there’s this little tiny room I think was probably used to be a closet, and the owner has a bunch of mirrors on the wall including a black scrying mirror. And so I was like, we have to do scrying. So I explained how to do it and I sat there with Nat while she began her scrying session and I’m watching her and looking at the mirror and just assessing the situation because this was her first time. So I wanted to make sure that everything was going, and at one point I could kind of feel the energy shift, and I look at her and I see her and she’s just really concentrating and her expression even kind kind of changes, and I’m like, is everything okay?
(21:16):
She’s like, well, am I supposed to feel like I’m to go in to the mirror? And I’m like, no, no, we’re not going to do that. I was like, I think maybe we should close this down, because between the energy shift and her feeling like she was being pulled into the mirror, I was like, yeah, we’re done. And that was actually a really wild experience. I write about it in the book. We had to go outside. I had to cleanse her aura. I even had to do some grounding by putting my hands on a tree and doing some breathing just because it was a really, that whole haunting was crazy intense. I can talk more about that as well because we’re pretty sure the haunting is a doll, an old marionette that is at the house. But that was pretty freaky. I investigated, I call it the cabin mirror.
(22:05):
It’s at the archive of the afterlife in West Virginia, which is a paranormal museum filled with haunted objects. And I did an investigation there and I was with my friend Sydney, and we were doing an Estes method, the spirit box where we were saying what we’re hearing coming through, and I had seen movement within the mirror, which was interesting. It wasn’t like a shadow or something passing in front of the mirror. It was literally like I was seeing a shadow being within the mirror, which that was pretty trippy. But within the spirit box session, the spirit was basically saying, it literally said, fall in, fall into the mirror, come in here. And we’re like, no, we’re not going to be falling into anything.
Jim Harold (22:48):
It reminds me of a combination of the roach motel and the twilight zone. Once you come in –
Cherise O. Williams (22:53):
Yeah, it’s creepy. So for my experience, it does kind of seem like entities with mirrors, they’re either just kind of watching you or they are, like you mentioned with the story, using the mirror to literally come through as a doorway or they’re wanting to pull you into the mirror and obviously you’re physically not going to go into it. But I do believe that your energy could get trapped within the mirror. So I think it is important with mirrors, and I talk about this in the book, different ways that you can seal or lock the mirror, which is essentially just putting a protection on the mirror so nothing can go in and nothing can come out. I think that that’s important. And I actually do that to all my mirrors in my house, whether it’s haunted or not. I semi-regularly put up new protections onto all my mirrors.
Jim Harold (23:42):
And do you think if someone has a haunted object that the default should be to just get rid of it? Or do you think they should somehow try to cleanse it? What do you suggest to people?
Cherise O. Williams (23:52):
I am of the belief that I don’t like getting rid of spirits or people who go into these haunted locations and they’re trying to send these spirits to the light or they’re trying to remove them. I’m kind of more of the like, well, maybe you can just set some boundaries. I mean, because spirits are all around us anyway, and I think maybe you get this ring and it has a spirit attached to it. I don’t know. It was the spirits first, the spirit was there first, so why are you going to kick it out? I don’t know. That just kind of feels a little wrong to me. But I do understand some people really, they want that ring. They don’t want to get rid of it, but they don’t want the spirit either. So in that instance then I guess maybe you could set some boundaries or remove it, but I don’t know.
(24:38):
I mean, I guess that’s kind a personal decision. I dunno if you want to get rid of it or you want to work with the spirit because not all spirits are bad or terrible. The spirit with the haunted art print that I had at first, it was okay, I just heard some knocking. I heard a voice. That activity, at least to me is okay. I was fine with that. Some people may not. So I guess it depends on your own personal, what kind of activity are you willing to be comfortable with and willing to accept? Is the spirit being kind? Are they causing havoc in your life? But I think that’s kind of just a personal decision on if you want to get rid of the object or try to get rid of the spirit and keep the object.
Jim Harold (25:16):
So is it possible that someone says, okay, I’ve got this haunted object. I don’t like the vibe. I’m going to get rid of the object. They get rid of the object, but they don’t get rid of the spirit. Is that something you’ve encountered?
Cherise O. Williams (25:30):
Yeah, that can happen as well. I mean especially I think that’s more common for the spirits that kind of just are using the object as a way to sneak into your life. I think with the spirit, again, with the haunted art prints that I had, which is why when I got rid of them, I didn’t just say like, okay, yeah, they’re gone. I got rid of them out of my physical possession. They were in another state at this point. So I did a complete cleansing and blessing of my home and set up new energetic boundaries and all of that to make sure that if they did stay back, that at that point I was officially kicking them out, not only with the object, but if they a little straggler behind, I got rid of them that way. So yeah, I wouldn’t say just get rid of the object and then you’re good. Get rid of the object and do a cleansing on your home and yourself and put up some protections.
Jim Harold (26:22):
You’d mentioned earlier haunted dolls, and you said you worked with a particularly interesting one and I mentally put a pin in that. Can you tell us a little bit about that case?
Cherise O. Williams (26:33):
Yeah, I actually have two, if we have time, we want to hear the other one please. But at the McInteer Villa, there is a doll called Esmeralda and she’s an antique marionette and she’s very creepy and you can see right when you see her, she has human hair, she’s made with human hair, and we did our investigation and the mirrors at McInteer Villa also, they’re very haunted. You can check out the McInteer Villa’s social media, and there’s pictures of entities in the mirrors, but we’re doing the investigation and it kind of just started. We realized there’s something going on with Esmeralda. There’s something going on with the mirrors. Literally every single room in that house has a mirror, including there’s a big tall wooden and glass case that Esmeralda is in, which is lined with mirrors. And we realized kind of quickly, I think that there’s a spirit attached to Esmeralda and she’s traveling through the home through the mirrors because we would see things like through the mirrors, like little shadows.
(27:40):
At one point, one of the investigators, Elliot, that I was with, he slept in the room that had Esmeralda, and he heard little, he said it almost sounded like little wooden or ceramic feet, just tapping along the floor that night. I know. Yikes. Terrifying. And I guess the next day noticed that Esmeralda seemed just slightly turned in her case from the night before. Oh man. Yeah, again, on the McInteer Villa social media, you can even hear EVPs that Stephanie the owner has gotten, and Esmeralda is not the nicest and has kind of an aggressive energy. I did some research after leaving the villa and contacted a man named Steve Overton from the Portland Puppet Museum. I think that’s what it called, what it’s called. And he told me that Esmeralda is actually an antique Burmese marionette. She’s one of a set of 28, and these puppets are, the puppeteers that operate them would put literally their blood, sweat, and tears into the doll as they were creating them and carving them. They are made with human hair, so they’re literally infusing these dolls with their energy, and then before a play with the puppets, the puppeteers will leave offerings and kind of awaken the spirit within the puppet. So all of this sounds so very paranormal and it’s very paranormal.
(29:17):
So I believe that that’s what Esmeralda is, and that she has this entity attached to her, and I keep calling her her, but Steve told me that she actually is the prince. There’s different characters. There’s like 28 different characters in this set, and Esmeralda is actually the prince. So she’s pretty freaky, and I would love to go back there now that I know what that doll is and the history behind how the doll is made, I would love to go back to the villa and investigate specifically just the mirrors and just Esmeralda.
Jim Harold (29:54):
And by the way, hear a little bit of noise in the background. It is not Esmerelda, it’s Lucy the dog, Cherise’s dog, who’s a little excited about this, really getting into it. So –
Cherise O. Williams (30:05):
I know she’s like, I have something to say about that!
Jim Harold (30:07):
Yes, exactly. So I just wanted to make it clear. We will get emails saying, I heard this noise.
Cherise O. Williams (30:13):
I know there was something going on in the background. Nope, it’s just Lucy.
Jim Harold (30:16):
This time around, this time around, maybe next time. Yeah, this time you said there was another case, right?
Cherise O. Williams (30:22):
Yes. Another case were Yes. Betty the doll. Betty the doll.
Jim Harold (30:24):
Oh, Betty the doll.
Cherise O. Williams (30:26):
Yeah, she – that damn doll. Sorry, I cussed.
Jim Harold (30:33):
I think you can get away with that now. Did you say Betty or Benny?
Cherise O. Williams (30:39):
Betty.
Jim Harold (30:39):
Betty. Betty. Okay. Okay. Sorry.
Cherise O. Williams (30:42):
So I think it was 2020 or 2021, something like that. I had the idea that I wanted to do this experiment with a haunted object, and so I contacted an investigator named Amanda, and I was like, Hey, I have this idea. Do you want to do this with me? And she’s like, heck yeah. So my idea was that we get a haunted object, one of us investigates it and has it for a week, and then we would mail it to the other one. They would investigate it for a week, and we wouldn’t tell each other what was happening during the week that we had the doll, the item, until we then got together and we shared and to see basically, would we have similar experiences? Would we get similar responses just to maybe prove, yes, this object actually is haunted because a lot of things that you find on the internet, people do know. You mentioned, I’m willing to pay double if it’s haunted. People know that and they’ll just sell anything and everything.
Jim Harold (31:36):
This is extremely haunted. Yes,
Cherise O. Williams (31:38):
Exactly. Yeah. So haunted. So we got on eBay together and we were searching, and that was one thing that we specifically wanted was an object that wasn’t crazy expensive thinking. If somebody has this object that’s haunted and they actually are trying to get rid of it, they’re not going to be charging this crazy amount for it. So we found this doll with a haunting, and we also liked that the seller wasn’t selling a bunch of other haunted objects, because that’s kind of a red flag too. This just happened to be a haunted object that they were selling. And so we got Betty, no, Amanda had her first, and then she sent her to me, and I had Betty for a week, and Betty is absolutely active. I don’t know if haunted objects just don’t like me personally because Amanda didn’t have as aggressive of a time with Betty as I did. But in the week that I had her, my husband and I both were having bad dreams and they were bad dreams about each other, almost as if to that we want to wake up and then be angry at each other the next day. Oh man, everybody in my house
Jim Harold (32:45):
To sow the seeds of discord,
Cherise O. Williams (32:47):
Kind of trying to create some chaos. We all felt just a little more grumpy and irritated the week that the doll was here. I heard footsteps up and down my hallway one morning at six o’clock in the morning, which Amanda also heard footsteps when she had the doll. Thankfully, Betty wasn’t as intense as the haunted art prints that I had, but just enough that I was like, this is annoying that she’s making us feel like agitated and grumpy. Every time I was with this doll. I just felt irritated. So we ended up, we’re like, well, what are we going to do with this? She wasn’t as much of a nuisance that I wanted to get rid of the spirit, but I also didn’t want to keep her at my house. So we did a giveaway and lucky winners received Betty, which actually I’m now friends with them.
(33:33):
Their names are Josh and Tamara. They had a Hex Files podcast, so I sent Betty to them. Betty has been living there happily with them for the last few years, but what’s crazy, I did another a video with Josh and Tamara and they brought Betty with them, and this was my first time seeing Betty in a year or two. We had Betty sitting next to us and we’re doing an interview, kind of a talk for this video, and above us, we hear footsteps running back and forth, and I was like, it sounds like the footsteps I heard at six o’clock in the morning. We’re like, what the heck??
Jim Harold (34:07):
Oh my God.
Cherise O. Williams (34:09):
We finish our video, then we all go upstairs to go to bed. I go into my room, they go into their room, and each room had a remote control for the fan and the light. And so I’m sitting there and I’m pushing the button for the fan to make the fan go, and nothing’s happened. I’m pushing the light button. I’m like, what is going on? And Tamara comes in, she’s like, are you flipping a light switch or something? I’m like, no, I’m pushing the button for the fan. She was like, well, our fan just keeps stopping and turning on. I’m like, are you kidding me? I’m like, because mine. So then she grabs hers and she pushes the button and my light turns off or turns on. We realized the remotes had been switched and none of us had moved to the remote controls from each other’s rooms. I had just used that same remote earlier in the day to turn the fan off when I was leaving the room, and it worked. So we’re pretty sure that the footsteps we heard running back and forth while we were doing our video was Betty, kind of just moving the controllers. So I think Betty’s more of just kind of a fun little trickster and not so much nefarious, but yeah, she’s super active now.
Jim Harold (35:15):
You talk about different types of things, protection. One thing you talk about are witch bottles for protection. Now, maybe most of our listeners are not witches. They may not be familiar with what a witch bottle is. Can you explain what that is, why it’s good for this kind of situation? And if it’s something that witches and non witches can use alike,
Cherise O. Williams (35:39):
And you don’t have to be a witch to do any sort of witchy thing, and there’s a lot of people who I guess technically would be witches, but they don’t call themselves witches. So any of these protection techniques, sigils, all of these things, you can be whatever religion or belief system and still do these things. And it doesn’t mean you’re a witch if you incorporate some of these things into your life, basically. But a witch bottle essentially is a protection. It can be really any container. It can be a little globe. It could be just a mason jar with a lid, but you’re putting objects and energy and intention into it to deter any spirits. And there’s a few different belief systems about how these witch bottles work, but I like to put mine outside and I will put a piece of something from our family in the jar, which this sounds crazy to people who are not witches, but the idea is that you’re putting the energy or a little physical something, and it can be just a little piece of hair.
(36:44):
You can even just blow your breath into the jar and you’re putting different protection oils or herbs. You can even put, I like to put glitter in there because I feel like that kind of attracts the spirits. They’ll see the glitter and shiny and they’re like, Ooh, what’s that? Or it also can reflect, bounce off energy away from your home. But the idea is that the spirit will kind of gravitate towards the jar or the bottle before it comes into your home, which is why I like to put them outside. So then, yeah, if there’s a spirit that’s kind of wandering your neighborhood and they’re like, what’s going on in this house? They may get distracted or kind of trapped by the witch bottle before they can come into your home.
Jim Harold (37:24):
Now you talk about another thing you talk about here, which I’m not exactly sure how this would work, but you can enlighten this, a haunted object tarot spread, because I think most people think about tarot spreads for divination or maybe personal insight to one’s life. But in terms of using it as a protection method, how does that work?
Cherise O. Williams (37:51):
Well, I guess specifically as a protection method, you could kind of do a spread to see what type of protection you would need from the spirit, because some spirits mess with you more energetically, some more maybe physically. So you could do it that way. But really, I mean, tarot spreads can be used for anything and everything. Tarot is the best thing ever. I’m obsessed with tarot. But yeah, I mean, it’s great for communication to talk directly with the spirit like I did with the art print. What kind of offering do you need? You can figure out the best way to communicate with the spirit. You can figure out their history. Why are they attached to the object, basically? I mean, it’s a conversation tool to have with different energies and entities. You can even read for haunted locations if you want. Yeah, tarot is extremely versatile in the world of bare normal.
Jim Harold (38:48):
So we think about haunted mirrors, haunted dolls, some things you have in here, haunted furniture, haunted painting, some of these different things. But is it true that almost any object could be haunted? And maybe if you could give us maybe one of the most unusual, because people always think about the haunted dolls, they always think about the haunted mirrors. Is there one that to you is like, oh, yeah, that could be haunted too. Maybe one you’ve experienced?
Cherise O. Williams (39:14):
Let me, that’s a good question. Now I’m flipping through the book myself to see.
Jim Harold (39:21):
Well, that’s the idea. We try to give people plenty to think about. So when we have something like this where the author has to go back to the book, it, it’s totally understandable. But you think about
Cherise O. Williams (39:31):
It to me. Well, because there’s a lot of stories in this book. It’s not just my own personal investigations, it’s people submitted stories to me. So I haven’t said,
Jim Harold (39:39):
Sure. And while you’re looking at that, just my thought is, is that if a mirror can be haunted, if a doll can be haunted, basically any inanimate object could be haunted, couldn’t it?
Cherise O. Williams (39:50):
Yeah, absolutely. Jewelry, mirrors, I mean, I don’t think I’ve heard of a haunted blanket, but I’m sure a blanket could be haunted.
Jim Harold (40:01):
Purse. We had a haunted purse on Campfire. Somebody just felt a really –
Cherise O. Williams (40:05):
A haunted purse?
Jim Harold (40:06):
Yeah, a sinister energy with a purse that they got.
Cherise O. Williams (40:10):
That’s interesting.
Jim Harold (40:11):
Yeah. Yeah. So it’s almost anything.
Cherise O. Williams (40:13):
Well, one that kind of stands out is, I think it’s kind of interesting, is my husband submitted a story of a big bird statue that they had when they were kids, which I thought was kind of interesting. It was a stone, I guess, statue of big bird, or it was just a big bird. He said he couldn’t quite remember that detail specifically if it was actually Big Bird from Sesame Street or it was just a big bird. But one day, him and his friends, and he was like, and this is where I believe that the story happened. He said, because we all have the same memory of it. And they were kids and they were riding their bikes up and down the street, and every time they would look over at to where the bird statue was in their yard, its arms would be in a different position.
(40:59):
And they were all completely freaked out about it. I’m like, they were moved. And I even asked him, was it a movable statue? He was like, no. It was literally made out of concrete or stone or something. There was no way that you could move it. And he said, it only happened that one day, but every time they would look over it, arms would be in a different position. And so I was like, oh. And I’m like, I wish you guys still had that. His dad keeps everything. He was like, I know I do too. He said, but one day the wind blew it over and it broke, so they threw it away.
Jim Harold (41:31):
That reminds me that one of, I think it was called the Dummy of the Twilight Zone, and the ventriloquist dummy is haunted.
Cherise O. Williams (41:41):
I hate those things. They’re so creepy.
Jim Harold (41:42):
And then he looks at it and his head’s turned this way and he had a whole monologue. It was actually quite brilliant, and he’s like, you put words into my mouth. You made me what I am. I hope you are happy HAHAHAHAH.
Cherise O. Williams (41:56):
Oh, no, it was fantastic. Terrific. Fantastic. Fantastic. That was one of my favorite Goosebumps books too, was the Night of the Living Dummy.
Jim Harold (42:02):
Yeah, good stuff. Good stuff. Indeed. As is this, we’ve been talking to Cherise about the Witches’ Guide to Haunted Objects. Where can people find this book and everything you do?
Cherise O. Williams (42:15):
The books are on Amazon and people can check out my website, cherisewilliams.com for any, that’s kind of where I put everything. And then I’m also really active on Instagram and TikTok, CheriseWilliams.xo. Oh yeah. That’s where I post everything.
Jim Harold (42:33):
Well, Cherise, it’s been a pleasure. Thank you for being a part of the show.
Cherise O. Williams (42:36):
Thank you so much. Thank you so much for having me and Lucy.
Jim Harold (42:40):
Yeah, absolutely. And thank you for tuning in. We appreciate it. Please like, subscribe and hit the bell if you want to get more content like this. We thank you very much. We’ll talk to you next time. Have a great week everybody, and stay spooky. Bye-Bye.
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