Tag Archives: egypt

C Is For Curses: Ten Famous Pop Culture Maledictions

On See You On The Other Side, we deal with all kinds of paranormal and unusual phenomena. While we love ghosts, UFOs, and cryptids, which are really the big three of the paranormal, we really just can’t resist a good curse. (and who can? That’s the scary part, right?) Here are some of our favorite curses we’ve covered on the podcast, with a link to each episode.

1. The Kennedy Curse

The Kennedys are America’s royalty. They are a fabulously wealthy and beautiful clan whose children have spent generations in powerful elected positions from the East Coast. With a President, multiple Senators and House Representatives, you would think that these guys have the world wrapped around their little finger. But tragedy has followed their family for generations, from the assassinations of the two most powerful brothers to the airplane crash of JFK Jr. to the failed lobotomy of Rosemary Kennedy, somehow their incredible fotune seems tainted.

2. The Oscar Love Curse

Oh, Hollywood. Glamor, money, fame… and very little lasting love relationships. Big stars change spouses fast You’d think that if you win an Academy Award, the film industry’s biggest honor, that your loved one would want to stick by you more than ever, but it ain’t so. Best Actress winners particularly seem to have problems with their love life after winning the big award. Is the great esteem cursed somehow or might it be the jealousy of the entertainment industry causing the split (especially when the woman outshines the man)?

3. The Franklin Expedition Curse

In 1845, the British Navy launched their most ambitious mission to find the Northwest Passage to establish a trade route between the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific. They sent their most technically advanced ships and two captains who were well-versed in Arctic exploration. Both ships became trapped in the ice and disappeared, prompting multiple searches for the Lost Franklin Expedition from Britain, America, and Canada over the years. Both ships were found in the late 2010s, but when the HMS Terror was discovered in 2016, the local Nunavut people felt that the spirits were disturbed on their island by bothering the sunken ship. Several untimely deaths occured in the community and they sent a team of guardians to perform a ritual to keep their community safe from the curse.

4. The Poltergeist Curse

No doubt about it, Poltergeist is a terrifying film. But the movie is fiction, what seemingly happened to the actors involved isn’t. Both of the actresses who played the daughters of the haunted family, Dominique Dunne and Heather O’Rourke died way too young. Dunne was murdered by her ex-boyfriend and O’Rourke died of a freak bowel obstruction. Julian Beck and Will Sampson, the evil and good spirits from Poltergeist II: The Other Side, died shortly after the movie’s release, hadrly unexpectedly, but unlucky at least. Some people say it was because they used real human skeletons on the set of the film, but Craig T. Nelson is still doing just fine…

5. The 27 Club

Jimi Hendrix. Janis Joplin. Jim Morrison. Kurt Cobain. Amy Winehouse. All immensely famous musicians who died at the peak of their fame and way before their time. But why did it all end for them before their 28th birthday?

6. Robert Johnson and the Curse of the Crossroads

Robert Johnson was one of the most influential blues guitarists of all time and was called the King of the Delta Blues. He also died at 27, but was never as famous in his lifetime as the other members of the club. His fame came after he died and has been called the best bluesman ever by the likes of Keith Richards and Eric Clapton. His songs have been covered by everyone from Led Zeppelin to The Blues Brothers. Some of them can be dark with titles like “Hellhound on My Trail” and his most famous song, “Crossroads” people say is about how he sold his soul to the Devil at a road crossing in Rosedale, Mississippi. It gave him amazing musical talent, but it ended up taking his life early.

The Mothman Death Curse

If you haven’t heard of the Mothman of Point Pleasant, a dark winged humanoid with red glowing eyes who was seen in the late 60s in West Virginia, you might consider yourself lucky. No less than the man behind the International Cryptozoology Museum himself, the legendary Loren Coleman, wrote Mothman: Evil Incarnate, a book where he describes the Mothman Death Curse. He devotes an appendix to one hundred mysterious and untimely deaths of people who have been involved in the Mothman mythos in some way, from the original victims of the Silver Bridge Collapse to people who worked on the Richard Gere film.

The Curse of King Tut

There were supposedly nine victims of King Tut’s curse, people who were related to the excavation of the Egyptian Pharaoh’s tomb. Sir Arthutr Conan Doyle, the writer behind Sherlock Holmes, even toured that there was some kind of supernatural vengeance that was being wreaked on these Western interlopers. It was featured in all the newspapers at the time, but also Egypt was a very popular topic to write about, and the financier of the King Tut Expedition gave a single paper the exclusive rights to the story. So, was the curse blown out of proportion in the interest of paper sales or was there really a curse on the wall of the tomb of Egypt’s Boy King?

William Henry Harrison and the Tippecanoe Curse

Before he became President, William Henry Harrison was governor of the Indiana Territory and was behind a shady deal that screwed the American Indians there out of a good deal of their land. A great battle was fought at Tippecanoe and Harrison’s forces emerged triumphant. The brother of defeated Shawnee Chief Tecumseh, Tenskwatawa, was considered a great prophet and he supposedly cursed Harrison to die in office and the presidents that every twenty years after. And they did, Harrison was elected in 1840 and dies in 1841, Lincoln dies in 1865, Garfield in 1881, McKinley in 1901, Harding in 1923, Roosevelt in 1944, and Kennedy in 1963. Seems like being elected in a year that ends in a zero is bad luck until Reagan survives his assassination attempt in 1981.

The Curse of the Billy Goat

How ’bout them Cubbies, right? They’re the most famous Chicago sports institution and are beloved by celebrities from Bill Murray to Vince Vaughn. And years afer his death, most baseball fans can still hear Harry Carey’s famous call of “Holy Cow!” perfectly in their heads. But another Chicago institution is the Billy Goat Tavern (the inspiration behind the Saturday Night Live classic “Cheeseburger Cheeseburger” sketch) and then the owner was kicked out of a Cubs game in 1945 because his pet goat smelled too bad, the rumor is that he cursed the team to never win the National League Pennant again. They didn’t get in the World Series again for 71 years and coincidentally clinched the title on the 46th anniversary of the owner’s death.

205 – Adventure Town Communiqué: An Intrepid Interview with Scotty Roberts

The first time we met Scotty Roberts was at the amazing 2016 Paradigm Symposium (you can listen to our recap of the entire event right here). It was kind of a life-changing experience for us as it was four days fully immersed in the paranormal and tackling everything from alternate history to alien coverups to the president of the Star Trek fan club to Travis Walton himself retelling his famous abduction experience. It still remains one of my all-time favorite strange weekends. Scotty was the driving force behind that conference when he announced that he was relaunching his YouTube channel with the various escapades from pontificating about family to exploring Egypt to his battle against political correctness, well we wanted to make sure to bring him on the show.

As the former Editor-In-Chief of The Atlantic Paranormal Society magazine (those are the Ghost Hunters from the SyFy Show) as well as the publisher of Intrepid, Scotty has plenty of paranormal bonafides. He’s written several books including The Exodus Reality: Unearthing the Real History of Moses, Identifying the Pharaohs, and Examining the Exodus from Egypt and The Secret History of the Reptilians. And as a former theological seminary student, you can rely on his work being fully saturated with history and research.

scotty roberts
Wendy and Allison hanging out with Scotty!

He even got Erich von Daniken from Chariots of the Gods? to write a blurb for one of his books. In my universe, that’s called makin’ it, baby.

In this episode we cover:

  • What made Scotty Roberts into the weirdo he is today!
  • Why he left the Baptist Seminary
  • Strange EVPs he recorded with Rocci Stucci and Dr. John Ward
  • Who does Scotty think is the historical Moses?
  • Scotty’s strange visions in Egypt with Phillip Coppens
  • What you can find on his YouTube channel

You can subscribe to Scotty Roberts’ Adventure Town Communiqué on YouTube right here.

scotty roberts
Mike partying with Scotty Roberts at Haunted America 2016

Now, one thing about Scotty is that he never shies away from an argument or a discussion. He’s willing to take on any topic and listen to every side of the story. That being said, he’s well-known for his conservative bent and isn’t afraid to share it. I’ve heard him say that “being offended a choice” and one that he chooses against so that he can engage in any kind of conversation. Scotty isn’t afraid to be the Devil’s Advocate and isn’t afraid to defend his position. This track is inspired by Scotty and dedicated to his willingness to rise to the challenge and be anyone’s debate partner (when you go from the seminary to writing about reptilians, you know you’re willing to make intellectual leaps!) Here is “Cry Wolf”.

Goddamn you love to be offended
goddamn I think you love to cry
you’re so addicted to your outrage
and you just love to roll your eyes roll your eyes

when the sky is finally falling
the Devil comes a calling
there’s no one left to cry wolf
there’s no one left to cry wolf

when we’re going down in flames
is there someone we’ll find to blame
there’s no one left to cry wolf
there’s no one left to cry wolf to

Oh man, I just can’t comprehend it
Oh man, I just keep wondering why
you’re so addicted to your outrage
and every word’s a hangin crime so hang me

when the sky is finally falling
the Devil comes a calling
there’s no one left to cry wolf
there’s no one left to cry wolf

when we’re going down in flames
is there someone we’ll find to blame
there’s no one left to cry wolf
there’s no one left to cry wolf to

81 – Mysteries of Egypt: Gods and Superstitions of the World’s Most Enduring Civilization

We’ve been discussing Orientalism for awhile on the podcast, last week it came up in our discussion of Planet X, Nibiru and it’s come up often in our discussions, from H.P. Lovecraft to Hollywood. The East is mysterious to us and therefore dangerous and titillating. There’s an element of fantasy to our thoughts about exotic places that seem strange and hard to understand. Just the word “exotic” conjures up a reaction because it means out of the ordinary, and that which is unusual, excites us.

So, with new news about King Tut’s tomb in the past month as well as the fantasy film, Gods Of Egypt coming out, it seemed like a good time to tackle the grandaddy of exotic and mystical cultures, Ancient Egypt.

Now, I know that Gods Of Egypt caused some controversy by casting white European actors as Egyptian gods and we have to acknowledge that. I haven’t seen the movie yet and will rest my judgement until I do. How can you not love Nikolaj Coster-Waldau (Jaime Lannister from Game Of Thrones!) and Chadwick Boseman (James Brown, too hot in the hot tub, ow!)? They’re both great. Gerard Butler, eh… he lost me after that Bounty Hunter movie with Jennifer Aniston. Here, let me refresh your memory…

I usually am not bothered by things like that, but then again, I’m not in a demographic that isn’t well represented onscreen. Unlike when I was growing up in the 80s, where dorks and outcasts were usually ridiculed and beaten up (Revenge of the Nerds notwithstanding, that was R-rated so I couldn’t watch it), particularly geeky white guys like myself have more representation than ever on the screen.

I do understand why people would be annoyed by someone taking a part of their heritage (like their ancient mythology) and not even bothering to hire people who at least look like the part. That doesn’t mean it can’t be a good movie or the performances can’t be great, that just means I see where the criticism comes from. That’s not directly the topic we’re talking about today, but I felt like it needed to be addressed, because the very “otherness” of Ancient Egyptian culture is what excited a lot of people about in the first place.

So, why Egypt? What is it about it that makes it so fascinating. Let’s start with the Old Testament. The story of Moses leading the Hebrews out of slavery and defeating the forces of the Egyptian Pharaoh is known by every good little Christian boy and girl.

And that story is surrounded in mysticism. Moses is basically a wizard who uses plagues of locusts, sends the Angel of Death to kill all the first born of Egypt, and magically parts the Red Sea so that his people can escape. It’s a great tale, Hollywood has made several versions of it (speaking of white-washing, good ol’ Charlton Heston is a little WASP-y for Moses, ha) and Metallica even wrote a song about it, “Creeping Death”.

So, Egypt is baked right into Sunday School in a magical story. And Egypt then can become shorthand for a strange pagan people who worship crazy gods and erect massive tombs that are still standing to this day.

The pyramids are the first thing most people think of when they think of Egypt and the idea that they were built by normal humans without any kind of modern mechanical assistance seems crazy, which is one of the reasons that the ancient astronaut theory took off, like they only could be built with the help of aliens. C’mon when I was a kid, there was a special called Mysteries of the Pyramids with Egypt’s most famous actor, Omar Sharif. He even says that they he’s not quite sure how they did it and how they would even make it today.

The Pyramids are still with us, you can go visit. I bet you know a dozen people in your everyday life who’ve seen the Pyramids. And those people probably went on a Holy Land trip where they saw multiple religious sites. So, it’s a massively historical place that brings about awe in just about everyone and you combine that with religious significance and you can see where we’re going with this fascination.

And we’re excited and revulsed by the otherness of them. It happens in the conversation in this podcast, when Wendy and I are discussing that since the Pharaohs claimed to be descended from Gods, they wanted to keep their bloodline as pure as possible, so you know what that means – they kept it in the family with incest.

Indeed, King Tut himself was probably have been the result of an incestual relationship between his father (the monotheist Akhenaten) and one of his sisters. Gross, right? Okay, well, I’m not going to defend incest, but royal boys and girls were not raised together. There’s this thing called the Westermarck Effect which is the natural disgust that we feel at mating with our siblings. It needs to be imprinted in the first six years of life or it never had a chance to take effect. So these kids just didn’t have that nasty feeling we all feel about our siblings (well, except for Jaime Lannister up there!)

King Tut’s “mother” (his father’s wife at least) was the famous Queen Nefertiti and it’s her that they think is in the latest discovery, that there is some kind of secret door away from his burial chamber that they hope might lead to her tomb as well. And Tut is the most famous Pharaoh, and I’d like to say it’s because of the Steve Martin song…

…but it’s probably because of the famous curse that supposedly happened to the original archaeological team who entered King Tut’s tomb. Unfortunately, the Curse of the Pharaohs is just an urban legend (or fortunately, I guess…) that was drummed up by the 1920s tabloids to sell more newspapers. But it worked, there was such a fascination with Ancient Egypt and the mysteries of the Orient, that people were naming their famous theaters “Egyptian”, “Oriental”, and “Chinese”. And Egypt has never been too far out of pop culture, Iron Maiden’s album Powerslave is famously Egyptian-themed and even ZZ Top talks about the pyramids in their song “Sleeping Bag” (it’s in the third verse and I’ve heard the song a hundred times and had no idea Egypt was in it, either.)

Only a few years later, Universal made The Mummy and it would go on to become one of their most famous monsters. All of a sudden these dried up corpses became icons of ancient terror and it also serves as a reminder that Brendan Fraser used to be a thing…

Now, one of the most famous mystical concepts about Egypt is their Book of the Dead. And it’s not really a book about the afterlife as much as it is a variety of spells that were supposed to help the deceased’s soul get into paradise. They thought of the afterlife as an obstacle course that you had to get through (where you could be eaten by crocodiles, kinda like that Atari game Pitfall) in order to make it to Heaven.

Once you got through the gauntlet, you would have to get to judged by the king of the Underworld, Osiris (played in the new movie by famous Egyptian actor, Bryan Brown ). He would judge you by weighing your heart against a feather. Wendy and I looked it up and a heart is a little less than a pound, so yeah, I hope this was symbolic.

The Egyptians believed that your intellect and emotion lived in your heart and that’s why it was the part that was weighed. So, if it balanced against the feather you were allowed to pass into Paradise. If it was too heavy, then you would be eaten by the Gobbler or Ammit, the crocodile-headed God with the body of a lion.

Either way, the Egyptians directly gave us the idea that the Heart is where your emotions reside, so we owe them that one.

They also, gave us the idea of the Guardian Angel. They called it a Shai and it was an entity that was born with every human and presided over our destinies and fates. In the end, the Shai would give a true account of our deeds and misdeeds. So this episode’s music track is Guardian Angel by Sunspot

For all the stupid things I’ve done,
and all the ways it could have ended wrong, ended wrong.
At the wheel drunk and stoned,
I should have ended up a pile of bones, a pile of bones.

But you watched over me,
giving this charmed life one more opportunity,
And then you prayed for me,
when anyone in their right mind would have left me hanging out to dry.

And I’m awestruck you’re such a dumb #$%^,
I’m gonna punish my guardian angel for
letting me live one minute more
Outrageous conduct,
I’m gonna test my luck,
I’m gonna punish my Guardian angel with,
the worst things that I can commit.

For every smoke I ever lit,
For every drink and every hit I took,
put it in your book,
for every little accident,
and every suicide attempt that failed,
just more blackmail.

But you spared, spared me,
Letting this $&@!?#% get away with it scot-free.
And you never abandoned me,
When everything I perpetrate should lead me right down to my fate.

And I’m awestruck you’re such a dumb #$%^,
I’m gonna punish my guardian angel for
letting me live one minute more
Outrageous conduct,
I’m gonna test my luck,
I’m gonna punish my Guardian angel with,
the worst things that I can commit.
The worst things that I can commit.
The worst things that I can commit.

And every time I feel even a little bit guilty,
I think of the sorry bastard who wasn’t so lucky,
So I blame you for the pain that I tried to escape,
I blame you for every heart I hurt, all my mistakes.
So give it up and don’t bother,
don’t waste your prayers on this clown.
One of these days I know you’ll let me down.

And I’m awestruck you’re such a dumb #$%^,
I’m gonna punish my guardian angel for
letting me live one minute more
Outrageous conduct,
I’m gonna test my luck,
I’m gonna punish my Guardian angel with,
the worst things that I can commit.
And I’m awestruck you’re such a dumb #$%^,
I relish every blasphemy, there’s nothing left here to redeem,
Outrageous conduct,
I’m gonna test my luck,
I am the soul you tried to save but I just want to make you pay.

I’m gonna punish my guardian angel, I’ll punish my guardian angel.
I’m gonna punish my guardian angel, I’ll punish my guardian angel.