High Spirits Chicago PODCAST

GJENGANGER SPIRITS OF SCANDINAVIA

• These Nordic spirits kill via a pinch, usually delivered at night.
• The pinched skin will turn blue and cause a wasting disease, which will eventually travel to the victim’s heart.
• Unlike most ghosts, gjenganger look more or less like normal living people, which makes them difficult to spot.

 

It’s easier to dismiss ghosts in the daylight.

— Patricia Briggs

THE STRIGOI GHOSTS OF ROMANIA

• Strigoi are the ghosts of people who lived or died under unhappy circumstances.
• With red hair and bluish-purple eyes, strigoi live on human blood, like vampires.
• Burying a body with a bottle of whiskey is said to prevent a loved one from returning as a strigoi.

 

LA PISADEIRA OF BRAZIL

• A tall, skinny woman with long yellow fingernails and red eyes creeps along the rooftops, and watches families inside of their homes.
• She watches them as they sit at the table for dinner. She watches them while they eat.
• After the meal, when someone goes to sleep on a full stomach, la pisadeira sneaks into their bedroom. Then she sits on their chest so that they cannot move.
• The pisadeira that has attacked them watches them as they begin to panic — the victim’s eyes partly open, but they’re neither fully asleep or fully awake.

 

THE DEER WOMAN OF THE PACIFIC NORTHWEST (USA)

• A creature that features in the mythology of several Native American tribes, most notably the Chippewa. Her form alternates between that of an old woman or a deer, but she mostly favors the form of a young and beautiful maiden with the feet and legs of a deer.
• The Deer Woman often enjoys standing just off the hunting trail, hoping to lure young men over to her so that she can trap them with her magic before it’s too late.
• She is also fond of dancing, known to enter dancing circles to dance the night away, occasionally using her beauty and dancing ability to lure young men out into the forest.
• According to the Chippewa, she can be chased away with a chant, tobacco, or by simply noticing that her feet aren’t human.

 

In culture after culture, people believe that the soul lives on after death, that rituals can change the physical world and divine the truth, and that illness and misfortune are caused and alleviated by spirits, ghosts, saints … and gods.

― Steven Pinker

THE SKONDHOKATAS OF BENGAL, INDIA

• The headless ghosts of people decapitated in train accidents, skondhokatas haunt the places where they died.
• Passengers report seeing them in train stations at night, or from the windows of trains traveling in the dark.
• They’re violent. But: they lack heads, so they’re not great at strategy and teamwork.

 

High Spirits Chicago is a PODCAST dedicated to talking about all things GHOST.

We also drink quite a bit.

Hosted by CHICAGO’S VERY OWN Noelle Schmitt and Jay Steigmann.

Listen to High Spirits Chicago PODCAST on Soundcloud and iTunes.

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People populate the darkness; with ghosts, with gods, with electrons, with tales.

― Neil Gaiman, American Gods

 

I like to have a martini. Two at the very most. After three I’m under the table, after four I’m under my host.

― Dorothy Parker

 

Monsters are real, and ghosts are real too. They live inside us, and sometimes, they win.

― Stephen King

 

I drink to make other people more interesting.

― Ernest Hemingway

 

Boos are just applause from ghosts.

― Sharon Needles

 

Only stupid people believe in ghosts. Also: I believe in ghosts.

― Jay Steigmann

 

Sweet Dreams XOXOZzzz.

― Noelle Schmitt