Hey there and welcome to the BigAppleSchool podcast, the weekly English show where we speak about everything under the sun. The major goal of this show is to help you improve your English and of course learn something new. My name’s Katya, I’m your host and today with me…
Oh, again, a party of four. I love it! I love it when there are four people, you know. So, and what about you, dear listeners, by the way? Do you like it when there are four people? Cause you know, you haven’t said anything about it and we really wanna know what you think about this new format.
And in general, what do you think about our show? Remember, you can always subscribe to our pages on Apple, Yandex, Google, Vk or any other platform where you listen to our podcast and let us know what you think. You can write about things you like, you can write about things you don’t like.
You can suggest some changes, leave comments, ask questions and even send your ideas about out next episodes. It won’t take much time of effort, but it will help us a lot to become even better. Is that so? I don’t need to be a psychic or a fortune teller to say that this will really help us, dear listeners. So and what about you ladies? Do you believe that it’s possible to predict the future?
Let’s talk about all the mystical magical things today.
That’s so funny, I thought this podcast was about makeup.
Oh. Well I mean we can definitely do that a bit later, you know. Well we’ll talk about a little bit different thing.
Okay, I’m a dreamer. And so I will have literal dreams when I used to drive in the United States. Of course I drove for like 40 years, I had a car. Now of course I don’t. But the last, maybe 15 years or so, when I had my car, I would dream about my car not working. And it would be literal, I would be like oh no, my car’s gonna… I would freak out.
I would take it in for like a pro-active action. Maybe something’s wrong, maybe it’s not. But every single time it would be the battery, it would be something. And so… But I had this last little piece that really, my last dream was when I was packing up before I came to Russia. I was packing up, everything was ready and I had the last thing which was to sell my car.
And I had a dream that I was coming up the long driveway that I had going like put-put-put-put. I was like oh no, my car’s gonna break down before I sell it. And I was just waiting for it to break down. So anyway, I was gonna sell it in the next few days, and it was being really cheap. And I would only put in like $5 worth of gas every time. I didn’t want to fill it up and head it overfilled. With a full tank.
So really, the last time I drove it, here it was, on empty and it did literally go put-put-put-put at the driveway. So my dreams about my car would always come true.
Wait, there is a certain name, right, for such dreams, when they come true? Like, what is it? Like, recurring dreams, is that so?
Recurring would mean that it would be the same dream.
The same dream over and over again. Hm, cause I’m pretty sure there is like a specific word for it when what you see comes true or what you feel you think…
Oh like a prophecy, prophetic. Oh so you have those.
Yes. Now I don’t have a car so I don’t have those dreams.
Interesting that they were only about your car.
Always. Cause that was the most important thing. Like what’s more important now to all of us? Our computer, so we can do online teaching. But when you’re commuting, it is your car.
You know, it’s funny cause I sometimes have dreams about driving a car and the thing is that I’m not a driver. I don’t, I have no idea how to drive, literally. I’ve been at the wheel one single time in my life. But I still have very often, like I think once a month, a dream when I’m driving and I’m crashing. And all the time I’m thinking oh god, that’s not my car, what am I gonna say? What am I gonna do?
Okay so I’ve read about dreams and the car can represent your body. So could mean your health.
Yes. Do you remember what happened after that? After you saw that dream?
Of course not, cause I never thought to think about it. Oh wow. I’ve never thought, I have never heard about this theory. Oh now when I have this dream…
It’s like dream telling… Telling dreams – you see something in a dream and it means something according to the, I don’t know, the books, the previous seers whatever we can call them, right. And some things really, from one to another dream-telling book, let is call that…
It can also be online. Online, there are some websites that can interpret.
Yes. I call them just in brackets books. Cause I can’t find the best definition to them. So you can see from one to another, it can have the similar or maybe a little different tellings, interpretations, right.
And that’s all exciting just to, I don’t know, to investigate it all and to find something that is or can be pretty much about you and then just to try to see if it really happened or not.
I remember from being like a little child, every time I saw, you know, like, cockroaches in my dreams, my mom used to tell me all the time, if you see cockroaches, that’s for money. You know, that means you’re gonna have money. So it’s a good thing if you see cockroaches in your dreams.
Seeing rats, for example, it’s something that somebody around you is going to set you up or betray you, something like that.
And then if you see, like, something with your teeth, like teeth falling out, that would mean you’re gonna have like problems with health.
Oh I have dreams like that all the time, that’s what it is?
Oh I heard that dreams about teeth would have something to do with someone lying – either you’re lying or someone around you.
My dream is usually like my teeth start breaking and the more I try to spit it out, the more I feel like pieces of my teeth…
Oh it’s a horrible dream.
Yeah, it’s horrible. And I still don’t’ understand what it means.
Oh I also read that if you dream about a lot of cats, it’s about troubles, so you have a lot of problems.
Yeah if you have a colony of cats, doesn’t really mean that.
Cat is supposed to be nice. Aw. Okay.
I had a different experience with dreams and I mean you would think it would be a prediction, but if you forget about it and only remember when it happens, I guess it’s not a prediction, right? It was more like a deja vu feeling.
Yeah, that also happens. It’s not as such connected with the fortune telling or the future, but it is inexplicable.
Do you know any scientific explanation to deja vus?
I used to know, I read about it.
I don’t, I’m so curious right now.
But that comes from the subconscious, right? Because the subconscious, it’s just crazy, it’s wild, you can think about all sorts of things. We’re supposed to be using our rational mind when we navigate our day.
Is it possible though to only use the rational mind?
No, it’s not. Cause a subconscious has a mind of its own.
Yeah deja vu is so weird. You know, you are like, like, I remember this conversation happening already. What is going on here?
I remember myself doing that already.
Is that a glitch in the matrix?
For me it is more like, something happens and I just dreamt about it last night.
Yeah. It would be more like that.
So and what about predicting the future? Do you believe that it’s possible to somehow find out what is going to happen?
If talking about that, alright, in a more rational scientific way, I think it’s more like seeing the ways that our future can develop into, right? If we talk about that in that magical mysterious way I think, of course everything is possible and everything is so interesting and exciting and that’s why I prefer to believe that you can, of course, tell, foretell the future. And actually the ways you can do it they are pretty much really interesting.
Have you ever tried to, somehow, to tell the future? To tell the fortune?
Sure. Of course. The cards, like usual cards, the usual deck and tarot and I think dream-telling, yeah. And sure. Maybe some Christmas tide what are they?
You personally tried all those?
Either me personally or somebody tried, somebody helped, right. So there are masters I can say about, if we talk about tarots. Right. So of course there are girls or maybe some other people, okay, if we talk about my circle, right.
So there are girls who can do that or who can know or what do the cards in the deck mean. The combinations of those cards. And that’s interesting and I can’t say that it definitely predicts your future or something, but it’s… Right, when you’re in trouble, when you need to make a decision, so probably that’s one of the ways that can help you to see something from…
Alright, from another side, yeah. Not only you, your family, your relatives or maybe some knowing people that you, for example, read. But also just…
I think when we have some kind of a decision to make, you know, and we are in between minds, we always want to, you know, to have a sign, to have fate tell us something, like come on, help me,
Help me make a decision! Oh you’ve mentioned tarot. Why don’t’ we talk about this first? So have you ever had your tarot read for you? I think they read tarots.
Yes I was brought up with these kinds of things. My grandmother actually did the Ouija board, my aunt did. And she always talked about spirits from the other side. My mother would go to tarot card readers and so, the first time I went was when I was 13.
And then when you’re talking when you have a decision to make, if you have your own set, and I have a really good book as well to interpret it, you can get addicted to it. So I’ve had several of times in my life where I get a set of tarot cards, I get a good book, I’d interpret it and then I would read it like 3 times a day.
You know, just crazy. So I had to get rid of it, I threw it out. And then you know, a decade later I would get another set of something.
Oh wow. Carol, what about you? Have you ever had tarot read?
Not me personally, not exactly. I know my family and my aunts have. But in my case, when I was in the United States, I was with this religious community, and they had this church in North Carolina where they would do some kind of reading. But they would say that they were hearing from God, so they would provide words of wisdom or words of knowledge.
But it’s very similar to, you know, to doing a consultation with a person who reads cards or things like that.
Cause I would… You know, tarot or something more or less mythical maybe, so to me, I would never, you know, connect it with religion as such. Cause it’s something so different. Well, at least…
It’s connected to the other side if you believe in spirits on the other side, not necessarily god I guess. But I think tarot card readers nowadays do advertise or they say that they are connected to this universal source or this source of love or this goodness. In this positive way of reading.
I remember I had tarot read when I went to my friend’s place and her roommate had a tarot deck. And she was like do you want me to read your tarot? And I’m like well, why not? And you know, how they say about your past, present and future.
And I realized, you know, that whatever card you have, you know, whatever description it has, whatever kind of events it describes, you are always able to interpret it your own way. To connect it with some things.
Cause if I tell you Alyona, in your… This card says that in your past you had some challenges that were difficult to go through, you would immediately think of some kind of events. Cause this is very general. Like, it doesn’t matter what they say, we will always find a way to interpret it.
Right. There is a lot of psychology in the working with cards, in working with astrology I think. So seeing not only the meaning of the signs, but also the reaction of the person and the person is the one who connects everything.
There is the interpretation of a sign or card and you are actually responsible for the connection, for all those connections to see them in the past or maybe in the future. So what the ways actually you are looking for.
I think in this case your subconscious actually tells you like okay, if you interpret it this way about the future, maybe that’s what you wanna do. Maybe here’s the answer to your doubts.
If I may play the devil’s advocate here, but I suggest that maybe all the forms of prediction that we use: tarot cards, like reading, I don’t know, like tea leaves and things like that, are all forms of the art of mentalism. Where you just learn through psychology like…
Well you have to have an experience with an actual person who does a medium work which I’ve had. And you have to sit there and say nothing and give up no facts at all. And she actually says things that are specific. So these acts of…
I had two actually before I came to Russia, I had two really good ones. And one told me that… I said oh I’m going to start ice-skating, he goes no, no, don’t do that. I’d really don’t want you to break anything.
I said no no no, I’m just going to do simple movements and just beautiful arms and just do it for exercise. And you know, well, I came back a month later and I said well you were right, I came back in a cast, I had broken my wrist ice skating. He told me not to do it, he told me. I don’t want you to break anything. It’s true.
So wait, when you say about this experience, is that with the Ouija board?
No, I don’t do the Ouija board, but this is from… This is a person who deals with the medium. He’s a medium, so he deals with the spirits on the other side. Whoever, whatever, are they my ancestors, are they my guides, I don’t know who they are.
I don’t know where he gets this information, maybe he has mental telepathy. I don’t know. I don’t know what it is.
And what about your experience… Cause you said that your aunt had the Ouija board. What was it like?
Yeah I think that was kinda low… I don’t think it was really anything valuable, really. But the two psychics that I have, have told me specific things and has really helped me.
Alyona, Carol, what do you think about Ouija board? Have you tried it yourself?
No, never, just saw it maybe in movies or whatever. So it looks really exciting and I think it has pretty… Okay, parallels with our Christmas tide, whatever it is, develation or something. I mean, so we have a set of different ways to predict future, especially after Christmas for 12 or 14 days. For 12 days.
Yeah I think in the, well, in our Orthodox calendar it would be from the 31st of December..
No no no, from the 7th till the 19th of January.
The 7th? Not the 6th? Cause technically 6th is the Christmas Eve.
Okay, so somewhere around Christmas time, 7th of January here in Russia. And it’s Christmas tide.
Christmas tide, right. During that time the people, especially girls, so they want to see the future, they want to see their husbands-to-be especially. And there is a massive tradition, at least it used to be in Russia before the Soviet union.
And sometimes now young girls, they try to predict something, to foresee something, I don’t know. Either it’s dropping the wax onto the surface of the…
We do that in Brazil, but not for Christmas. It’s for the date of a saint in June. Saint Antonio if I’m not mistaken, cause he’s the saint of relationships and…
Oh so you also put like hot wax into cold water to see what shapes it takes?
And there is one more thing, I don’t know, you maybe wrap or, okay, some piece of paper and burn it and the shape that you can see turning the dish where it is…
I think you look at the shadow, right?
Yeah. You look at the shadow and the shapes that you can see maybe can tell you something. It’s so exciting, especially for young children, yeah, to do. I don’t know, so that’s why I can see some parallel with that Ouija board, right. It’s, I don’t know, it’s magic, yeah.
Or someone pushing it, right.
Actually, my sister and I, we tried it, Ouija board, several times. Nothing happened. Nothing ever happened.
That’s because you’re being honest. You need someone in there to push it.
To make you believe. But yeah. Thank you for mentioning Christmas tide cause there is a huge culture of fortune telling in Russia during, you know, around Christmas time. So there’s this pouring the hot wax, not only on Christmas time, New Year’s as well, its said to be very magical time, so and girls used to, you know, go outside.
The first person they saw, they would ask the name, you know, like and whatever the name was, would be the name of their… somebody destined for them.
Right. And maybe their first-born or something like that.
Yeah there are so many different ways. And I remember my told me that oh, I was once fortune telling. How did that go? She was like well, I don’t remember how exactly she did that, but she said that the name of my future husband was Gena and I said that was horrible. I would never marry a guy whose name is Gena.
Guess what my father’s name is. I was like are you serious? So yeah. And I think there’s also this way of, you know, I don’t know if it’s fortune telling or superstition. We Russians are very superstitious. So but when you sleep on a new place, like in a new home.
You have to say, you know, a phrase something like, of you who is destined for me, come to me in my dream and then whoever you see in your dream is the one who’s destined for you.
Or put a comb under the pillow, right.
And say something like oh my destiny come and…
Brush my hair, yeah, right, comb my hair.
That would scare me. That will scare me if someone was brushing my hair.
There are scary things, you know, some scary ways of fortune telling when they say you have to go on a dark Christmas eve into the banya, which is usually a separate building, at night, with no one else. Sit in front of a mirror, burn a candle. Like, thank you very much, I’m good, I think I’m good. It sounds really scary.
I mean it’s dangerous too, I mean the fire, the fire in a barn or some place.
No no no, it’s not a barn, it’s banya.
But isn’t it made out of wood?
But it’s usually wet inside.
But still, imagine, you’re sitting in a dark building. You have a mirror and a candle. So and you know how this usually creates this…
Yeah and also it’s kinda creepy, you know, I would be scared to death.
How about making a corridor of that mirror corridor.
When you make that corridor, you put one mirror in front of you and the second one behind you.
And burn two candles on the sides. That’s so creepy. Even at home when it is dark, when you make it, of course you can see something there. I don’t know, approaching you.
So okay, all of this is negative, it sounds very negative energy. I don’t deal with that.
So we were talking about god or something good, some kind of good energy.
Well there is one way. Well, this has worked for me for like 8 years now. So I think I’ve mentioned it in one of the episodes as well. But and it’s been like a tradition in my family for like years and years and years.
So on New Year’s night, so form the 31st of December to the 1st of January, when you go to sleep what we do is we write 12 different wishes on 12 different pieces of paper. Then when you go to sleep, you put all of them under the pillow.
And first thing you do when you wake up is you take out three of them randomly. Usually the first thing that you… the first wish that you take is, you know… Will come true. The second one is like 50/50. The third one, well, unlikely. And you know, at first I was skeptical, but it’s been 8 years now and the first wish has always come true for me.
And I’m like… I don’t know if that brings me motivation or if it’s just a coincidence, but I prefer to believe that it’s not just a coincidence. So yeah. Try it.
One of my friends and I, we have a tradition on that Christmas tide. We meet for coffee, for example, and we do pretty much the same thing – we write some wishes to each other and to ourselves and we put them to a hat for example, right.
And we take out three, they can be written by myself or by my friend, whatever. And so we take out 3 wishes and after that, kind of we wait and see what’s gonna happen. And a few things, really, came true. She had a baby as she dreamt. It was a trouble for her. And she couldn’t.
And now she has a little boy and she’s happy and I think one of the things was that I got an interesting job, yeah that was changing absolutely, huge change in my life. I became a teacher and then a school director, so that was one of the things. I don’t know either to believe or not, it’s like…
Like you were saying before, these were very general things.
It’s so pleasant to think, right.
Kinda gives hope, to believe in these miracles.
Right, that’s what I mean.
I have a question to Carol. So you’ve said that you do the same with the, you know, with the wax and everything, but in June. So is there a culture of fortune telling in Brazil then? And how widespread is it?
Definitely. There is a religion in Brazil that came from Africa when the African slaves were brought to Brazil. And the name of the religion is candomble. And they have the god that they worship, Oshun, and the guardian angels.
What they call the guardian angels, the orishas. So the priest of this religion will often do some readings with the… With a type of shell from the sea, in Portuguese they call it buzios, so they would, they prepare a whole set up, you know.
And then they throw these shells to see what, where they’re falling and then they do some readings about… It could be things that you need for now, for the present or the future.
It reminded me about actually those stones, runic stones that…
The runes, right. That some in Scandinavic I think…
The Vikings, right, in Scandinavic tradition, so they had, let it be a little bag of those runes and they used to throw them to see, maybe, the answers.
Yes, and these are little clay tabs, little cubes or little stones. And each one would have a certain symbol, which is their alphabet, looks very foreign to us. Each one has. But a lot of this information with the runes has been lost and so if you’re going to do the runes, you have to kinda develop your own kind of a method with it. Yeah but they come in a little bag and you kind of shake them and see how they fall.
You know, it’s interesting to see some similarities between different cultures maybe. Even, you know, so far away from each other. That’s so great.
So the one… I told you that I have two little good psychics in the states, the one who told me about the ice skating accident, I would go see him and he would give me a scarf and I had to hold on to one end. Can’t remember which end.
The two hands. And then he would hold to one part of the scarf. And for some reason there was this energy through the scarf. But another one decided to go, she could go online, you could get your reading done online. As long as you’re connected to the spirits of the afterworld.
Somehow I don’t trust online that much, you know, in general. That sounds….
But energy is infinite, it can be anywhere.
It knows no borders and distance and time.
Yes, right. Yes, exactly. The past, the present, the future. Cyberspace.
But still it’s like with teaching online/offline, yeah, so it’s different energy, right, that you are working with a person face to face. Even for you, as a person who is a client, yeah, it can be different. You can feel it much more, much greater, right, way. And of course you can, I don’t know, how the person…
How the person…. Online is less personal, less magic.
Yeah, less magic, less magic.
Yeah and I disagree. Because I can hear better with the headset and so I can hear and kinda feel their voice. It’s very intimate. We’re like face to face right there. And it’s not like you can avert your eyes or…
So wait, Alyona, Carol, have you had any experience with a psychic?
I don’t think so. Just only the cards and the Christmas tide, yeah.
Not really. I know definitely my family has, they used to consult with psychics. In Brazil there is this other sort of philosophy/religion, spirituality. Like spiritualism. And they have mediums and some people consult with them. And there are definitely family members of mine who have consulted with them and they definitely have some pretty interesting stories about things that were predicted to them.
Unfortunately the sad one, but one of them has to do with my father’s passing. Apparently my aunt had consulted with a card reader, well, not really a psychic, but a card reader, and she alerted my aunt about it. And it did happen, it did come to happen.
But other things were mor like confirmations of some things wrong with me. Like, cousins of mine, he was sick of something and they consulted with some mediums and they were able to pinpoint why he was feeling the way that he was.
And then he went to some sessions with them. I guess kind of prayer that they do, I don’t know exactly how it works, but he got better. So.
Actually, during mine, I once was at a healer if we can call that person. So the person who can be what’s that? Manualist, right? Therapist.
Yeah manual therapist? Like a chiropractor?
Yeah yeah. And the other thing is that he… I’m not sure, he was claimed to be kind of a psychic or something.
Right, a healer, looking into your eyes or touching your ears or something. He was like ah, that’s wrong.
I had… Now I remember, here in Russia I went to Altai and there was a lady there who was part of the group that was going up to the campsite. And she mentioned something… And she looked at me and she mentioned something about my pancreas.
And I was like okay, I mean, I didn’t take it seriously, but it turns out a few months later when I went to the doctor that I did have some problems with my pancreas. I had to take some medication for.
I would be so offended if someone was talking about my pancreas.
Exactly. I was like what?
Especially coming out of nowhere.
Yeah, really. I’d be so offended.
Yes, but, you know. But turns out she was right.
So helpful, helpful piece of advice. Very weird one, but still.
The other psychic, who is very very wonderful, she told me so many things about my father and my mother, because they are both on the other side. And I did not say anything, I did not give up any facts, any impressions, opinions, nothing.
And she would just describe my mother to a tee and my father. And it was really helpful. Because once they passed, you can’t say certain things. And so it really brought a connection.
Yeah there are so many things we cannot explain, how they work, but we just have to accept it and that’s it. Like, how could this lady know about the pancreas? Maye of course it’s something like a deduction based on the slight change of shade in your, let’s say, skin, or the color of your pupils. I do not know. But still.
Still I believe that people have some powers, yeah. Can be either some mental thing or maybe some things connected to energy or whatever but still. And I think that most people like this, they either don’t, I don’t know, they don’t make it a big deal, yeah, or they work with people a lot and they become not popular, but quite well-known.
And people consult them and they just tend to come and that word of the mouth works and so, if the person really does something, something good, they can predict or see something. So in that case, it’s not like advertisement or popularity.
The most popular type of ad, actually, the word of mouth.
So you’re talking about people who are special, but what about our own intuition? I mean we all have this gut feeling, we all know, right? I just know that I can make certain decisions, because I just know it.
Sometimes, yeah. I think this is something that can’t be explained rationally. It’s just something we have to accept. You know, people with some of the, maybe, powers, something like that. They can’t explain how they do that. But if they can, they can, who cares? Maybe there is no, you know, rational explanation to that. Maybe there shouldn’t be.
Yeah I guess during the day we do… Not during the day, but on a daily basis, well, you know, over the week let’s say, we make lots of tiny predictions about many things, we just don’t seem to trust it enough or trust our gut enough to really… To take them into real consideration until it happens, right. But I do believe that we all have this little gift inside of us. We just need to explore more.
Yeah, maybe. So we’ve talked about this culture of fortune telling in Russia, we’ve talked about culture of fortune telling in Brazil. What about the US? Barbara, would you say that there is a certain culture of fortune telling? That a lot of people are into it or interested in it?
I guess what I’ve described already, the mediums, some bookstores will have psychics there. So there is one in Atlanta called the Phoenix and the Dragon and this is quite common. A certain kind of metaphysical bookstore will have readers.
And the whole list of them.
I’ve never heard about them.
That’d be a bookstore, well, you have books of these different kinds of religions or these different kinds of predictions and then maybe certain stones, certain tarot cards. Where they’re selling all these kinds of tools and there they’d have the readers. Yeah.
I’m not sure about, let’s say, maybe… Well not psychics… Well, maybe psychics and mediums, but I have noticed that tarot reading has become really widespread cause I, you know, when I’m in Boston for example, even in Wellesley.
I sometimes see these little ads like tarot reading, tarot reading. So and I think wow, so there are more and more people who start to do that.
There seems to be more consistence among these mediums of what I’ve described is that if you see a red hand in the window advertising for palmistry or something, this is some kind of a lower energy kinda fake... You have to be very wary of these red palms or of Ouija board or these little kind of things. Because there are really people who can really somehow…
But they don’t need to advertise themselves, cause people know, I guess, by the word of mouth or something like that. I’ve just thought about NOLA, have you ever been to NOLA? Cause I heard that wherever you go in New Orleans, there are psychics.
That’s how I say it, New Orleans. And you said New Orleans.
New Orleans. Is that? New Orleans? I’ve never heard someone say it.
Well some people say New Orleans, I say New Orleans.
I usually hear people say NOLA.
Yeah I’ve never heard of NOLA.
New Orleans, is that what you’re talking about?
New Orleans, yeah. But now people just say, and it’s written like NOLA, like N-O-L-A.
Probably because nobody knows how to pronounce it, we now just say Nola.
Just like saying LA for Los Angeles.
Yeah. LA, Nola. Have you ever been there?
So what would you say about their psychics? Cause as far as I get, there are so many palm readers, tarot readers over there.
It’s for entertainment. A lot of people are coming but I don’t know, but I just have the bus station, so I don’t know.
Cause, you know, I saw all these videos and pictures from there and it kinda makes me, you know, question it. Cause are these just for entertainment for like tourism? To create the atmosphere of the city as, you know, being so mystical, you know, full of different stores and legends and myths?
Or it’s kinda of a mecca for all the palm readers and tarot.
Yeah they usually say it’s a mecca for all the crazy people, but okay.
But it’s also a mecca of really mixed people as well, so there’s a lot of different kind of traditions and mixing around.
Is it there that they have a Mardi Gras?
It is the same as carnival in Rio, it’s the same beliefs.
I am desperately trying to remember now… How do you call it, the culture of… Voodoo! Actually in Nola there are a lot of people who practice voodoo and all that, witchcraft as they say. And then… I’m trying to remember the word, like the concept…
Which is somehow connected with people who live, god… No, I can’t remember.. So the place where a lot of alligators are, the swamps! So and people who live on the swamps, they do their dark black magic and they say don’t go over there. I remember all of these like elements of this culture, like, roosters, gators, swamps, dark magic.
There is more specifically about the dolls that they make.
I remember that one of the key elements in their culture is Papa Legba. Have you ever heard about Papa Legba?
Okay. Well this is something to look up after the podcast then. So Papa Legba is like the dark figure in their voodoo witchcraft as far as I understand. Some kind of a spirit that you can make a deal with, but it’s gonna cost you a lot. And in this case it’s not usually about the money they say, but about something else. So like….
I definitely have many stories related to that, but form Brazil. And because of my grandmother, because she used to do stuff like that.
Tell us, tell us, tell us, tell us.
She would… Even… She would have these what she would call prayers to lost souls and basically if you needed something, you would ask these souls and you have to promise something in exchange and it could be that you will pray to them every day of the week in exchange of a favor.
Or any promise like go to the cemetery and then do something there. There are many like, promise could be anything, so one of the stories. And it’s kinda more of a dark side of it. My aunt had made such promise to one of the souls, but she was not keeping her side of the promise.
So the souls apparently started haunting her in her sleep and so my grandmother tried to… She said okay, let me try to solve this issue, so she spent the night in my aunt’s apartment and saw, indeed, in the middle of the night, she was being bothered by something.
So she started talking to these beings and she just felt something jumping on her throat. So that’s the story, it’s pretty dark.
Did your aunt keep her promise in the end?
My grandmother made it like sort of like a counter-promise.
These are the conditions we offer.
So she made a different promise to kinda like take it upon herself to continue the payment to the souls and after that it seems that everything was okay with my aunt.
it’s a very ungrateful thing, I think, to make, you know, a deal with something like that.
I don’t wanna mess up with them. Alright. So and what about… We’ve talked about Ouija board, tarot, what about astrology and all those zodiac signs? What is your outlook on that?
I grew up again, my family really believes in everything related to that, and my grandmother actually every morning, she would on the newspaper, she would read everybody’s horoscope.
She loved doing that together as a family, it was like a daily event that we had every day. But that’s not something that I kept doing, but I think it’s really interesting I think that a lot of it is based on legit things. However, I read a couple of years ago that there is a zodiac sign related to how a calendar is arranged, so that kinda shook my beliefs about it. Because we’re not getting the whole information here.
There is this big debate here about astrologers and astronomers, cause astronomers are saying that the sky, the pattern of the star are completely different form when astrology was first mapped out. And so we have a completely different sky up there.
Which would lead us to believe that astrology really wouldn’t have any bearing on the sky anymore. And that’s what I tend to believe as well with the astronomers. But with astrology, it was big in the 70s. It was… Have you’ve ever seen like what’s your sign? Oh we don’t get along, oh.
Yeah, you know some ties when they say oh she’s very stubborn, people like of course she’s stubborn, she’s a Taurus or she’s Aries.
Right, right. That was so big.
I think it’s getting big again actually. I still hear a lot of people talking like that, especially when it comes to relationships and you want to find a partner.
And either way, I think it has a lot to do with when we feel powerless in this world that we’re in, Covid and all the hot spots of the wars, conflicts around the world. And we need some kind of hope. We hold on to oh, Scorpio goes with Sagittarius or water signs go with this.
You know, it’s interesting, cause people would never, you know, when I say like I’m Aries, they’re like no, you’re not. You don’t look like… You’re not as stubborn and conflicty and moody. I’m like well, maybe I’m an unusual Aries then.
Oh that’s because you have Scorpio in the fifth house. It’s because…
I heard that about Capricorns, I’m a Capricorn, I also hear a lot of that Capricorn is very stubborn.
Stubborn and hard working, really hard working.
And I have a lot of Capricorns in my family and around me and so I can say yes.
Wait, Capricorn, Aries and Taurus, they are the same Earth sign, right? So…
So that’s why they’re similar.
So I’m a water sign, am I a water sign? And I’m hard working. So you describe me.
Wait what are the water signs?
What is it, Pisces? Scorpio. What about, wait, what about fire?
So it goes in order. So every fourth one.
So Aries, Leo and who’s that? Sagittarius.
Of course I used to know these things, I don’t anymore.
You know what? You know, I used to think that okay, I kind of remember the zodiac signs and questions like oh, what zodiac sign are you? But now it’s gotten, you know, further than that. I have some student and, you know, they’re in their early 20s, and they’re like what sign are you?
I’m like Aries. They’re like what’s your rising sign? I’m like excuse me? They’re like well what’s your rising sign, sun sign and moon sign? I’m like what? What are you talking about? They’re like… You know, I could physically hear their eyes rolling I think. It’s clear…
It also has something to do with, I don’t mean to put it down, but it has something to do with… It’s something you can slip into knowing about something that doesn’t really matter or either you can’t prove.
And you just feel a little superior.
Yeah, yeah. That as well.
Yeah, but apparently, as far as I understand it, I may be wrong, cause I’m not an expert on these things. But as they tried to explain it to me, it’s like your rising sign is your zodiac sign, the one, you know, depending on the day that you were born.
Then your sun sign it’s in what position was the sun the day that you were born. And it’s different, cause you know, everything moves. And then the same with the moon sign. So you can be Aries, rising Taurus…
And they’re by houses, that’s what I was saying, fifth house or the twelfth house, yeah. You wanna make sure which planet was in which house.
And if the map of the sky is completely different now. What value does it have? That’s my position.
The house… It’s just, how is it possible to keep all of that in your head? I think it’s just so much information.
You know, that’s why someone would feel like an expert.
I know that now astrologists re using the special program to see that.
Is it like a natal… What is a natal card?
Natal card or something like that.
It’s the day you were born, based on that year.
And then the position of the sun, moon and everything?
And it’s gonna be like Eastern Standard Time, is it?
That’s actually a good question, what time do we have to keep in mind?
Right. So I went to an astrologer when I was living in Las Vegas and he mapped it out. This was of course before computers and everything. And this was a big map. Well he had to put in the information and send it away, send away for it.
And I had to wait two weeks for this big map. And so I got this map with all the planets. It’s like I don’t care, it’s just… It looks like nothing to me.
Okay, and then when they show you the map, like what does that mean?
You know it was interesting about 4 years ago, when I started my school stuff and it was like the first month of my directing the school, we had a city birthday, yeah. And I decided to present my school there. I made an interesting…
Is that with the Harry Potter photo zone?
There was a Harry Potter photo zone and we had many interesting things we did there and so on. But the thing is that the second zone on the left was the astrologist, the girl who was telling the past, future and present, yeah, reading the zodiac sign, like the map, natal card or something like that.
And while we had some time, so she was like I can read your future for example. And she typed in her program the data I gave her and actually started talking about the things like you are petty open person, oh, that’s interesting. You have some things to do with languages….
And you’re like no shit, I’m right here presenting my language school.
Right. And she was like oh, you kinda a future manager or something like that.
Sherlock would love that.
Yeah, yeah, a school director.
Yeah, something like that. It looked more like, you know, those testings for professions, yeah, for your future professions.
Oh right, aptitude tests. Right.
Yeah. It looked more like that when I was pretty adult, I completed that test and everything actually. The future professions were the profession I had already tried and so on.
Been there, done that, had work.
I mean that astrological thing probably, again, it is general, yeah. And still it works on the interpretation that the astrologist gives you and the connections that you make with these. Probably there is something in that, especially if you believe. I think when you’re… Faith is the biggest thing in all that.
Yeah, the belief in something.
Correct me if I’m wrong, I’m really curious about something, would this astrological reading, be also somehow connected to the reincarnation? Cause if I’m not mistaken, someone after losing her dog, she decided to consult with an astrologist and to find out when her dog would reincarnate, you know? And she tried to get the dog.
Probably there are some connections, but I’m not sure what you can see.
Yeah I think it’s gonna depend on the astrologer, if the astrologer believes in reincarnation. But I think a lot of times reincarnation does come into play with a lot of these things. Reincarnation with tarot cards or whatever, whatever mode we use.
But I also have a question. You know, when people talk about reincarnation, how can you guarantee that something or someone is reincarnated as exactly the same species? What if you were a dog and then you reincarnated as a cat? Or as a person? Or as a stone?
Yeah this is going to depend on what they believe, because there are going to be some people who believe in reincarnation that you an only go from people to people. And then there are some that believe that you can turn into a cow next time. And there’s always going to be a reason.
Karma, right, karmic things and the, I don’t know, the list of your all good things that you did.
It’s like if you’ve been a horrible person you’re gonna be reincarnated as a horrible…
Dog as well, right? I think. It’s all counted.
I would like to be a bear. I can be a bear. To eat all year to, you know, to gain as much fat as you can. I can do that.
You can roar at the people and the other creatures that around you.
You sleep through winter, I can do that. You give birth to your cubs while you sleep, so when you wake up they’re pretty grown, I can do that.
Oh I’m sorry to burst your bubble, but you have the danger of the lumberjacks and the logging and you’ll get killed. It’s terrible to be…
Depends on where in the wild you are.
Where, if you’re in some kind of conservation.
They don’t do that in Alaska. They preserve, I think, it’s illegal to kill bears in Alaska.
Well laws come… I’ve just heard about a certain law in a certain country, I’m not gonna say which country, cause I might be living in that country. Loss that has come…
Is that it’s gonna make it easier for trophy hunting. So if you’re a bear…
Yeah, if you’re a bear in a certain country, yeah, it’s bad luck for you. Yeah I wanna be a bear in a country where…
Yeah. Alaska would work. And they have a lot of fish, a lot of salmon. They recently had a, you know like one of those cameras that kinda, you know, just used to observe the animals.
And they recently posted a picture from one of those cameras, there were like 7 or 8 bears at the same time trying to catch salmon or trout or something like that.
Yeah, I know. Yeah. Okay, I do not know if that’s a thing in Brazil or in the US, but in Russia there is also this tv show, well not a tv show, but a reality show about psychics. And I think it’s called the Battle of Psychics. Where they try to, you know, solve different puzzles or they are given, you know…
There are usually 10 people and then with every episode one of them, you know, has to go away. And then for example, they are given a photo and they’re like what happened to the person?. And sometimes the person is, you know, all good and healthy, watching all that from, you know, the next room.
Sometimes it’s a dead person and they’re like oh I see how it happened. And sometimes they are just so wrong, like, I used to… When I was a kid… Just do you know it’s been going on for like 15 years already.
I thought 10. 15? No. Oh my goodness.
I mean I remember watching it when I was, like 13-14.
Yeah, so just doing the math over here. Yeah. So but there’ve been like what? 20 seasons? 15 seasons of that? And I used to believe, you know, all that. I used to think like wow, these are powerful people. Now I just look at it like okay, let’s watch this fun show.
Okay if it’s on tv, it must be true, right?
I was growing up a very naïve kid, you know. But yeah. And I just can’t understand how come that it’s been 15 years of all that.
High ratings, people are watching evidently.
Why? Cause they love all these spooky things.
Just they want to touch this mysterious…
But you know that reminds me, what about using psychics for detective work? Have you ever seen shows like that or read articles where the police would just be at their wits’ end, trying to find this murderer and they bring in a psychic. Yeah sometimes, sometimes.
I watch a lot of crime shows and I’ve seen maybe one or two situations where they do that.
Yeah, I’ve seen shows already cause it can be true. I mean they can help. Sometimes they don’t. But it’s possible.
Well that’s what, you know, happens a lot on this reality show that we have here in Russia. You know, they have like an unsolved crime and they’re like what do you think happened? Oh I can see they were killed. Some people are like, well, especially the relatives like, yes yes yes, it can’t have been an incident or an accident or something like it. It must have been a murder. Like.
Okay, so these are people trying to find people who have been killed or missing?
Or just telling them, you know, what happened, you know, before the body was found.
Oh I didn’t get that. I thought you were talking about someone would leave the room and you’re asking.
That’s also one of the tasks at the beginning. Yeah. I think it all starts, like the first episode where they need to choose some of the people who stay, like, you know, you have like three boxes and you have to say what’s in one of them.
And it can be, you know, like an owl, it can be an orange. Sometimes people are like oh I see something, you know, something alive and it’s just, you know, a box with something.
Something fluffy and it’s an orange, right?
And I think it goes, like, it escalates from… So there are tasks like that too at the beginning, there are tasks with murders, there are tasks with when am I gonna find my love or something.
But if they do find the body in the river after a psychic says that, then it’s true.
But how do you know that it’s not been scripted in the scenario and in reality there is no…
Right, if you’re talking about the reality show. But if you’re talking about a real crime that you actually read in the newspapers.
Yeah, well, I’ve never read about it.
I’ve heard of an experiment that was done a long time ago where you put a person in a room with their eyes covered or something. And some dark. And then they would a person in another room and try to draw what picture they had in their mind. And the result was very accurate actually.
Yeah this is how, what you were talking about earlier, in the program about trying to measure it scientifically. So I think scientists have always tried to measure this kind of thing. Yeah.
That’s their job, you know, to try to measure everything.
Well what would be with the instrument to feel coldness like in a haunted house like oh, it’s hot over here, there must be a haunted ghost over here.
Oh yeah, you know, sometimes people also have these things, you know, that kinda move. I have no idea how they’re called, but yeah. But I saw in this reality show how people are like my things are telling me something happened.
Right. It’s like a magnetic energy being attracted to something.
And it works. Remember those guys who are looking for water in deserted zones.
Oh right I heard about those.
Right. Just carrying those two…
Right right right, the two sticks together. And they would just get two branches that go in the contraption and then they go here is where we’re going to build, we’re gonna dig our wells, cause we are pioneers and we need water.
How it all works? Just faith and belief?
Science. I’m pretty sure that science is involved.
I watched a film based on real events where people tried to find water this way. He actually… In the story his son disappeared in some country and he used this technique to try to find his son in this other country where he was, I think, murdered or something. But yeah, and he actually, he was able to solve the crime.
But nowadays we have a machine that can actually see computer, right, we know where to dig for, you know, some kind of Egyptian tomb or something.
Yeah. So many things that are yet to be explained or not explained. So what if you, what if I asked you to give let’s say one piece of wisdom or advice to our listeners based on the episode, what would you tell them?
Well my advice is if you’re gonna go to a psychic, don’t give up any information and have that psychic say it all.
If you are going to try tarot or maybe astrology, just give it a chance, but think rationally as well.
Oh that’s a good one as well.
Definitely not act impulsively after the reading.
I think we could’ve ended with don’t act impulsively.
Alright. And I wanna end with you know, this phrase from Mulder from the X-Files – I want to believe. Well actually I’m still curious what about our listeners – what do you guys think? Do you believe in these things or not? Have you had, you know, any spooky experiences, inexplicable things?
Share them, share them in the comment section. We’d love to read that. Yeah. Alright, well thank you ladies, it was a very fun talk. Very spooky and not motivating, but you know, uplifting maybe in a way, you know, to know that there are so many inexplicable things out there.
So and thank you our listeners for listening and remember, if you struggle to understand any part of our conversation, you are always welcome to our website which is bigappleschool.com/podcast. You can find full scripts of each episode there, so you can read and listen.
And that’s really-really cool. And if you wanna get even more content which will help you learn English, you can follow us on any social media, such as Instagram, Vk, Youtube, Telegram. We are everywhere. Just search our name which is BigAppleSchool. So that was Katya and my guests for today were…
Stay tuned and we’ll see you around.
Катерина Рудых
Carol Binda
