October 18, 2025 • 47 mins
At the height of the spiritualist movement of the late 19th century, an obscure teen in a small Midwest town became a celebrity. Whether it was the effects of mental illness, an undiagnosed sleep disorder, or an actual case of possession, Mary "Lurancy" Vennum was thrust onto a national stage by true believers who were convinced that she had special powers to talk to the dead.
Baird, A. (1949). The Life of Richard Hodgson. London: Psychic Press.Bruce, H.A. (1908). Historic Ghosts and Ghost Hunters. New York: Moffat, Yard & Co.Hoffman, F.S. (1903). Psychology and Common Life: A Survey of the Present Results of Psychical Research with Special Reference to their Bearings upon the Interests of Everyday Life. New York & London: G.P. Putnam & Sons.Myers, F.W.H. (1903/1961). Human Personality and its Survival of Bodily Death. New Hyde Park, NY: University Books, Inc.Stevens, E.W. (1887). The Case of Lurancy Vennum. Chicago: Religio-Philosophical Publishing House.
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/autumn-s-oddities--5307439/support.
Baird, A. (1949). The Life of Richard Hodgson. London: Psychic Press.Bruce, H.A. (1908). Historic Ghosts and Ghost Hunters. New York: Moffat, Yard & Co.Hoffman, F.S. (1903). Psychology and Common Life: A Survey of the Present Results of Psychical Research with Special Reference to their Bearings upon the Interests of Everyday Life. New York & London: G.P. Putnam & Sons.Myers, F.W.H. (1903/1961). Human Personality and its Survival of Bodily Death. New Hyde Park, NY: University Books, Inc.Stevens, E.W. (1887). The Case of Lurancy Vennum. Chicago: Religio-Philosophical Publishing House.
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/autumn-s-oddities--5307439/support.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:32):
Hey, Hey, welcome back to Autumn's oddities. I'm Autumn, y'all.
October has been kicking my ass. I am losing a
fight that I did not know I was in. It's
almost like the universe knows that this is my favorite
time of year and has just decided like it's gonna
throw everything at me at once. Somebody hit my son's car.
(00:55):
I gave it to him like a month and a
half ago, and they took off. Unlucky for that person,
there was a witness and the girl found her real
quick and made her pay the repairs out of pocket.
And for the past two weeks, I have been dealing
like NonStop with the body shop and little Miss Hit
and Run, also while working my bizarre schedule and attempting
(01:18):
to see my family. You know, we really can have
it all. No, we can't. It is a myth. We
cannot have it all, like there's not enough hours in
the day. Truly, that's a cliche, but it's true. My
absolutely vital equipment for work has been malfunctioning, and I'm
ready to just go ahead and set fire to everything
and move my entire family off the grid. You know,
(01:39):
I'm just having a tiny little baby Mintie Bee. I've
earned it. I think we all have. And speaking of
what some believed to be a mental breakdown, today's case
is either one about a possession by ghost or a
girl who's diagnosis was just very misunderstood, and also, I believe,
(02:00):
just the grief of parents who were hoping to talk
to their daughter one last time. At the height of
the spiritualist movement of the late nineteenth century, which I've done,
an episode about an obscure and sickly teen in a
small Midwest town became a celebrity. Whether it was the
effects of mental illness or an undiagnosed sleep disorder, or
(02:23):
another option. An actual case of possession. Mary laurencey Venom
was thrust onto a national stage by true believers who
were convinced that she had special powers to talk to
the dead. Dubbed the Watsika Wonder, Venom attracted spiritualists from
her home state of Illinois and the surrounding Midwest region
(02:46):
of the United States. They came to see this girl,
believing that she was possessed by the benevolent spirit of
Mary Roff. Benevolent even though she's taking over someone's body
who was a local teen who died in an asylum
exactly thirteen years before Venom's first episode of quote possession.
(03:08):
Many hoped that she'd be the proof they needed to
confirm their beliefs in the afterlife. Yet two people, her parents,
Thomas and Laurinda Venom, just hoped to keep her out
of an asylum. Mary Laurency Venom, known as Rancy Rancy Comora,
I'm sorry, I can't help it, Rancy Anyone, was born
(03:30):
on April sixteenth, eighteen sixty four, in Watseka, Illinois, a
small town one hundred miles south of Chicago. The story
of the wat Cicca Wonder, of course, named after the
town where this incident took place, so easy, began on
the morning of July sixth, eighteen seventy seven. Thirteen year
old Laurence had awakened feeling ill and frightened. She told
(03:53):
her parents about a disturbing incident that occurred to her
the previous night, in which mysterious people entered her room, yelling, Rancy, Rancy,
that was me. I came. I traveled back in time.
Uh you know. I went to Cerne in Switzerland or
wherever it is, and I had them put me in
the Hadron collider. I went back in time and I
(04:14):
screamed Rancy Ramsey because I thought it sounded like fun.
And you know again, I have I have a lot
of free time. I've got so much free time that
I had. I had the time to do that, to
travel to Switzerland to be placed in the large Hadron collider.
Let's all go next time, okay. A week passed with
no other incidents. Then, while helping her mother stitch a
(04:34):
broken seam on a carpet, she stood up and said
that she didn't feel well. Suddenly, she fainted, only to
come two five hours later. Obviously, this was a frightening
moment for missus Venom, and when Laurencey emerged from this
agonizing episode, the mother as well as Laurency may have
(04:55):
felt the worst was behind them. They were wrong. This
was a only the beginning, and things were going to
take a turn for the bizarre. It wouldn't be long
before her condition worsened. Laurencey suffered from excruciating abdominal pains
in addition to the fainting spells. However, the symptoms took
(05:15):
on a new dimension. She began to murmur in her
unconscious state about strange visions of beings she referred to
as angels. And once that kind of start, like, once
that kind of talk, you know, starts up, it's probably
time to go to doctor, uh, not like a not
(05:36):
like a medical like general practitionery. You need to go
to like a brain doctor. You know. That's probably what
they called him back then. Also, some reports, not substantiated
by really any sources, claimed that she was speaking in
different voices, and when she awoke, she would not remember
a thing that occurred to her during these hours long,
(05:57):
sometimes up to eight hours episodes, so she would go unconscious.
You know, according to her, she was unconscious, she remembered
nothing hours long. Sometimes she was just unconscious, like asleep,
and sometimes she was saying things in different voices. The
next day, while apparently in a trance like state, she
(06:18):
said she could see spirits of the dead, including her
deceased sister and brother. So here we go, we're already
kind of kind of like laying the foundation. It's like,
all right, clearly this girl has had some tragedy in
her life. Her brother and sister have died, and now
she's saying she's seeing them along with angels. So you know,
(06:42):
maybe there's some unprocessed grief trauma. This was, you know,
a very long time ago. They were still a bottomizing
people the human brain. We still don't know a whole
lot about it, So just imagine back then, really really
archaic stuff. Over the next two months, she had a
(07:03):
number of similar like trance incidences describing heaven and angels.
In September she appeared to return to normality, and remember
these started up in July. Then again in November she
began experiencing severe stomach pains five or six times a day.
The following month, she entered a trance state and again
(07:25):
began seeing angels. These trances continued over the next seven weeks,
during which time she often appeared to be in a
state of ecstasy. Odd to local physicians and the family's
methodist minister because you know their brain. Doctors all concluded
she was insane and just recommended that she be sent
(07:46):
to an asylum immediately. And if we know anything about
you know, back then, it was as soon as somebody
became an inconvenience to you and you had the ability
to put them away, and it was usually women. That's
that's what the people chose to do like, oh, well,
she's kind of, you know, becoming irritating to us. She's
fucking up our sleep, she's saying weird shit. I think
(08:06):
I think she's crazy. Put her in the asylum. And
you know that went on for quite a while. If
you had anything going on with you that was considered
outside of the norm, you were typically put in an asylum.
You can watch American Horror Story Asylum that's a fine
example of that at season two, and in Briarcliffe Asylum
is where it's set. I believe it's based on a
(08:28):
real case where a journalist was put into an asylum
because they were gay. And back then that was considered
a mental illness and was indeed illegal, so they were
allowed to whoever they are, were just allowed to lock
up people who were gay. Oddly enough, there was one
thing that Laurencey did remember from these episodes. Again, she
(08:50):
claimed she was talking to the dead with what little
they knew at the time, and really it was very little.
Doctors who examined her were convinced that Laurency was mentally ill. Again,
come on, the only treatment for mental illness was indeed
confinement in the state insane asylum. In Peoria, Illinois, which
(09:10):
by all accounts was a dire place, somewhere you did
not want to go. And like I said, for all
intents and purposes, asylums of the nineteenth century were dumping grounds.
There's really no other way to put it. Patients that
these places often face treatments that were barbaric and far
worse than whatever affliction had brought them to those institutions. Also,
(09:34):
most who entered would never see the outside world again.
They were just confined to the hospital for the rest
of their lives. They typically died there. And if they weren't,
you know, mentally ill or insane clinically before, they were
made that way by just horrendously barbaric treatments like electroshock therapy,
heat therapy, like you know, they would put them in
(09:56):
a scalding hot bath and put like a rubber thing
over the entire bath and only lent person's head poke out.
Oh lord, all kinds of shit like that, just medicating
them into oblivion, beating them everything you can possibly think of.
The venoms were faced with this dilemma. Did they send
their daughter to the state insane asylum or did they
(10:19):
keep her at home and away from the public, which
of course was another option for parents at the time. Apparently,
it explains why so many movies and shows that are
set in the past to have secret children in the attic.
Let's Goonies, for example. I'm just thinking of like a
funny one. They've got friggin' sloth up in the attic
and they're just like leave him with a TV and
a bunch of food because he's different. Like, and that's
(10:42):
what happened back then. Laurency was to be spared the asylum. Thankfully,
word miraculously got out about her visions and supernatural talents.
It wouldn't be long before bands of true believers within
the spiritualist movement would pay her visits to seek her
wisdom and guidance. The Frail and Sickly teen was becoming
(11:03):
a popular and some said, powerful medium between the spirit
between the living and the spirits of the dead. This
new chapter in Laurencey's life started in January of eighteen
seventy eight, when a resident of Watsika came to pay
the family a visit. Asa Roff once had a daughter, Mary,
who suffered from the same conditions that Laurencey had. Eventually
(11:27):
he had to make the same choice that the Venoms
had made. It would be a mistake that would haunt
him for the rest of his life, because Mary would
eventually die in confinement at the asylum. ASA's presence at
the Venom household that day was simple. He was there
for one reason. He was begging them not to send
Laurenzy away. Here's another layer, right, So this man had
(11:51):
a daughter who's who had seen you know, had these episodes,
said I'm communicating with dead people. He listened to doctors
and air quotes. I think like anybody could be a
doctor back in the day, pretty much like maybe a
school for like five minutes. I think pretty much any
white dude could be like, I'm a doctor, she's insane.
(12:13):
Put her in an asylum, and you know, somebody would
do it. But Asa Roff and his wife made the
decision to send their daughter to an asylum, and she
died there. And clearly he and his wife were dealing
with a lot of guilt from having made that choice.
And as well intentioned as Asa was, he also had
(12:34):
other motives. Asa believed that his daughter's spirit still existed,
and he was a firm believer in spiritualism. And as
we know, it was kind of a cult like religious
movement that centered around the belief that one can communicate
with the dead. Asa was so convinced that Laurencey was
a medium that he brought in fellow spiritualist doctor E.
(12:56):
Winchester Stevens. Tell me what he's a doctor of? Really, Like,
what's the a doctor of? I'd like to know to
examine Laurency on his behalf if possible. Assa may have
thought Laurency could contact his daughter Mary. So who's Mary Roth? Well,
she's the girl who'd eventually become part of Laurencey's life,
(13:17):
and she had been a sick girl for the entirety
of her very short life. She suffered from epilepsy and
other mental illnesses, including hearing mysterious voices in her head
and falling into trance like states of unconsciousness. And again,
I'm not a doctor anymore so than most of these
people were in the eighteen hundreds. That sounds like schizophrenia
(13:41):
to me. Again, I'm not a doctor because I wasn't
a white man in the eighteen hundreds who just said
I was. Throughout the years, Mary grew violent as the
illness took hold of her. Finally, when she was a teen,
Ausa was forced to have her committed after she slashed
her arm with a straight razor. On July fifth, eighteen
sixty five, Mary's troubled life came to an end at
(14:04):
the State Mental Asylum in Peoria. Whether it was the
similarities that existed between the two girls in the same
town or something else entirely, Asa was convinced that Laurencey
was the person who could reach Mary from the beyond.
As time went by, Asa became more convinced that Laurencey
wasn't just able to communicate with Mary, she was conjuring
(14:27):
Mary and allowing her to speak through her. That he
thought that Lawrencey was some sort of a conduit for
his daughter to come through. The child regarded her own
family as strangers and instead showed affection towards the family
of the dead girl, whose memories she exhibited as her own. Still,
one story suggests that the connection between the two girls
(14:49):
came about after doctor Stevens mesmerized because that's what they
used to call hypnosis. He mesmerized her and began to
talk to the spirits believed to be within Laurency and
within moments of that hypnosis session, Lorency began speaking in
another voice, which allegedly came from a spirit named Katrina Hogan.
(15:12):
A few moments later, the voice changed and claimed to
be that of Willie Canning, a young man who had
committed suicide. After an hour of speaking in Willy's voice,
she suddenly threw her arms into the air and collapsed.
Doctor Stevens managed to calm Laurency down, and after he
calmed her down, Laurencey's voice changed once again, and this
(15:33):
time she claimed she was in heaven and was allowing
a gentler spirit to control her. That particular spirit was
Mary Roth. Eventually, after the mesmerizing session, the spirit of
Mary revisited. The effects were positive on both the Venom
and Roth families. For Laurencey's parents, they didn't have to
(15:56):
send their child to an insane asylum, and for Asa,
he had perceived connection to his dead daughter. And again,
I think this is more than anything a story about
grief and loss. But for the spiritualist this was all
the convincing they needed to them. This was proof that
(16:16):
the spirits of the dead were trying to contact the living. Yet,
a closer look at the evidence of Laurencey's possession does
bring about some questions. Hypnotism is a therapy that has
indeed been thrown out of criminal courts for its unreliability.
I e. Go back to the Michelle Remembers episode where
under hypnosis, this lady said the craziest shit You've ever
(16:40):
heard in your life and brought about the entire Satanic
panic movement of the friggin nineteen eighties, destroyed a lot
of lives. Her and her air quotes therapist who she
ended up marrying all kinds of conflicts of interest. Either way,
hypnotism not reliable. Also, study have shown that people under
(17:01):
this condition can be persuaded or manipulated into giving answers
that the person conducting the hypnosis wanted a doy. Also,
another justification needs to be closely examined for its authenticity.
Many websites touting Lawrencey's ability as a medium pointed to
the personal details that she seemed to know about Mary
(17:22):
Roff when she was in a trance. Many supporters on
one of these sites make arguments that the two girls
never met and they also grew up in different times,
but they did have something in common. Assa Roff, the
man who started the whole possession story, the one who
made the suggestions in the first place, the one who
(17:43):
brought the doctors around, who hypnotized her. Doctor Stevens first
visited the Venom family in January nineteen seventy eight, accompanied
by Asa Roff. They found Lorency sitting near the stove,
looking sullen and crabbed. We got to bring that back
crab I assume that means like pissed off, but this
is a quote from them, sullen and crabbed. I'm crabbed.
(18:06):
I'm crabbed today. When Stevens asked her name, she replied
Katrina Hogan, giving her ages sixty three and saying she
was from Germany. After this brief conversation, so we're going
into the details of what she said under this mesmerization.
After this brief conversation, she abruptly changed personalities and claimed
to be the man known as Willie Canning. Willy then
(18:29):
started interrogating doctor Stevens, asking about his beliefs and whether
he went to church and liked to smoke and drink.
And I'd be like, it's not any a business, sir,
And after an hour and a half, Laurencey fell on
the floor and went into a trance. She then began
answering doctor stephens questions with rationality and understanding. She apologized
(18:50):
for having such evil conditions about her and said she
knew the evil spirits, calling themselves Katrina and Willie. Doctor
Stevens suggested that she look around her for a higher, purer,
more intelligent, and more rational spirit to control her. Why
this man is saying let a spirit into your body
and let it take control of you. I don't know
(19:12):
if that's real. Don't suggest it. Why in God's name
would you do that? But Laurencey then said that there
were a great many spirits willing to come, and that
one angel stepped forward, giving her name as Mary roth
and Oseroff immediately identified her as his daughter. Laurencey then
(19:33):
declared that she would let she was going to allow
Mary Roff to take over her body for a period
of time, absolutely not, and her personality then changed from
the described by her parents wild and ungovernable girl that
she had been in recent months to become mild, polite
and somewhat timid. She claimed to know none of the
(19:56):
Venom family her own family, and said that she wanted
to go home. Upon hearing of this situation, Mary Roff's
older sister, Minerva Alter, the wife of a physician, paid
a visit to the Venom home in the company of
her mother, Anne Roth. There comes my mom's sister, Nervi,
Rancy exclaimed, using Mary's pet name for Minerva, a name
(20:18):
not heard by anyone since Mary had died. After that reunion,
Rancy as Mary Roff became even more homesick and begged,
begged to be allowed to go home because Laurencey had
become such a problem. The Venoms reluctantly consented, and in
February they did send Laurencey to the Roff's home. She
(20:41):
greeted her paw and maw and each member of the
family with hugs and shows of affection. Asked how long
she would stay, she replied, the Angels will let me
stay until sometime in May. And over the next three months,
Laurencey as Mary Roff recognized old neighbors and friends. For instance,
when Missus Parker and her daughter in law nell came
(21:04):
a call in, Rancy greeted them as Auntie Parker and Nellie.
Laurencey asked Auntie Parker if she remembered when she Mary
Roff and Nervy used to come to her house and sing,
something which both Missus Parker and Nervy they did both
obviously remember. When another former neighbor visited, Laurencey called her
(21:25):
Missus Lord, the name Mary had known her by when
she was a widow, although by this time she had
since remarried and become Missus Wagner. Asa Roff frequently tested
the girl by asking questions about Mary's life. On one occasion,
he asked if she remembered a trip to Texas in
eighteen fifty seven. Yes, Pa, she replied, and I remember
(21:47):
crossing Red River and of seeing a great many Indians,
and I remember Missus Reeder's girls who were in our company.
During the first month in the rough home, Laurencey refused
to eat, explaining to her parents that her nourishment was
coming from heaven and it was necessary for her to
refrain from food until the body was ready. However, she
(22:09):
did eventually come to eat with a family. On February nineteenth,
aser Roff wrote the following letter to doctor Stevens. You
know how he took the poor dear girl Laurencey Mary
in quotation or in parentheses Mary. Some appreciate our motives,
but the many, without investigation and without knowledge of the facts,
(22:30):
cry out against us and against the Angel Girl. Some
say she pretends. Others say that she's crazy, and we
hear that. Some say it is the devil. Mary is
perfectly happy. She recognizes everybody and everything that she knew
when in her body twelve or more years ago. She
knows nobody nor anything whatever that is known to Laurencey.
(22:53):
Mister Venom has been to see her and also her
brother Henry at a different time, but she don't know
anything about them. Missus Venom is still unable to come
and see her daughter. She has been nothing but Mary
since she has been here and knows nothing but what
Mary knew. She has entered the trance once every other
day for some days. She is perfectly happy. You don't
(23:16):
know how much comfort we take with the dear Angel Again,
does this not just sound like parents who regret their
decision to send their child away and they're literally just
clinging onto anything in the hope that you know, their
daughter forgives them and is okay wherever she's at, and
that they can still speak to her. Raph further informed
(23:39):
doctor Stevens that during her trance states, other spirits would
frequently speak through her. One day, the voice of someone
who claimed to have lived and died in Tennessee spoke
through Rancy and told him that Mary would retain control
of Laurencey's body until it was restored to good health.
Minerva Alter also wrote to doctor Stevens about about her sister,
(24:02):
stating a few days ago Mary was caressing her father
and mother and they became a little tired of it
and asked why she hugged and kissed them. She sorrowfully
looked at them and said, oh, Pa and Ma, I
want to kiss you while I have lips to kiss
you with, and hug you while I have arms to
hug you with. For I am going to heaven before long,
(24:24):
and then I can be with you only in spirit,
and you will not always know when I come, and
I cannot love you as I can now, Oh how
much I love you? All red flags all over the place.
On May seventh, Rancy slash Mary took Mary's mother and
raw aside and told her that Laurencey Venom was coming back.
(24:45):
A change of personality then took hold and the girl
asked Anne where she was, began crying and said she
wanted to go home. However, after about five minutes, Mary
returned to Rancy's body. On May twenty first, Assa Roff
recorded in a letter to doctor Stevens, Mary is to
leave the body of Rancy today about eleven o'clock, so,
(25:07):
she says. She is bidding neighbors and friends goodbye. She
tells me to write doctor Stevens as follows, tell him
I am going to heaven and Rancy is coming home. Well.
She says she will see your dear children in spirit life.
She talked most lovingly about the separation to take place,
and most beautiful was her talk about heaven and her home.
(25:30):
At eleven o'clock on the dot, Rancy returned and was
speaking to Ossa Roff as if he was a stranger,
and asked to be taken to her home. She lived
a normal life from then on. Rancy continued to live
with her parents until her marriage to George Benning in
eighteen eighty two, and two years after that the couple
(25:52):
moved to Kansas. It was reported that Mary would occasionally
take control of Rancy's body in subsequent years, but her
husband did object to this and said it wasn't true
and asked people to stop talking about it. After Rancy
returned to her normal life, doctor Stevens compared her handwriting
with that of Rancy during the three month period that
(26:12):
she was allegedly marry and found them to be significantly different.
And to that, I say, you can't change your handwriting,
I sure can. And also was he a handwriting expert?
Were there even handwriting experts back then? Lots and lots
and lots and lots of questions. In eighteen seventy nine,
(26:33):
doctor Stevens published a report of the case, which included
testimonials regarding the good character of Asa Roff, as well
as several newspaper accounts of the story. One such report
from the Iroquois County Times ended, it is hard for
even the most skeptical not to believe there was something
supernatural about her. If she was not prompted by the
(26:55):
spirit of Mary Roff, how could she know so much
about the family, people with whom she was not acquainted
and whom she had never visited. In eighteen ninety, Richard Hodgson,
an investigator attached to the American branch of the Society
for Psychical Research visited Watseka and interviewed witnesses of the events.
(27:16):
I have no doubt that the incidents occurred substantially as
described in the narrative by doctor stevens. Hodgson, reported, adding
that the only explanation other than spiritualistic was that Laurency
had a secondary personality with super normal powers, which is
a theory he regarded as more fantastical. That one is
(27:39):
a bridge too far. I guess that one is a
bridge too far for this guy who's in the Society
of Psychical Research. In a nineteen oh three book, psychologist
Frank Sargent Hoffman, not himself a witness to any of
the events, speculated that it was a case of here
we go hysterical personation? Is this age? That is? Rancy
(28:02):
had heard enough gossip about Mary Roff over the years that,
having become mentally unbalanced and exhibiting the same symptoms as Rancy,
decided to impersonate her. Similarly, Henry Addington Bruce, an American journalist,
speculated that this was a case of multiple personality in
which a secondary personality buried in Rancy's subconscious surfaced and
(28:26):
telepathically read the minds of the roths concerning Mary's life,
thereby tricking them into thinking she was really their daughter.
This is way too much and just exhibits really like
they did not know jack shit about mental illness in psychology, psychiatry, YadA, YadA.
(28:47):
They didn't know anything back then. They're like, yes, there
must be another personality very deep down inside that is
uh impersonating this girl. She's learned everything and she's she's
doing a bang up job. But what might modern diagnosis
reveal well, The symptoms that Lorency exhibited are similar to
a very rare sleep disorder called Klein Leven syndrome, also
(29:10):
known as sleeping beauty syndrome. Although it typically afflicts adolescent males,
it does occasionally strike teenage girls as well. In fact,
there's a pretty recent case and it was it occurred
in a fifteen year old girl named Louisa Ball of
the United Kingdom. Louisa was diagnosed with Klin Leven syndrome,
(29:31):
and that is an incurable autoimmune disorder that some researchers
say disrupts the hypothalamus, the part of the brain that
regulates appetite, sleep, and libido. KLS, as it's abbreviated more
often does afflict males, usually beginning with a virus during
adolescents that seems to trigger like prolonged periods of sleep
(29:53):
and aggressiveness along with hyper sexuality. And you can kind
of see some of the hyper sexuality in like the
way over the top touching and caressing and kissing of
this family that was not Laurencies. I'm not saying that's
you know, hyper sexuality can mean a lot of things.
It doesn't mean like having sex. It just means being
(30:17):
like extremely affectionate, more affectionate than you would have ever been.
And I think that could possibly qualify for some of
some of her behavior during her trance like states in
her time with the Rough family. Mood stabilizers like lithium
and hormone therapies help those with KLS, you know, just
around the edges, but they don't ward off the extreme sleep,
(30:39):
and those periods of sleep can be like a few days.
But in the case of Louise's ball, she was waking up,
her parents were waking her up, and when she would
wake up, she would eat ravenously, which does indeed differ
from Laurency slash Mary but they were also taking the
the roths were taking everything that you know, Laurence Mary
(31:01):
was taking or was saying at face value, her saying
I'm not going to eat until Laurencey's body as well.
They were just like, okay, totally, like we we get
that totally. And then she eventually did eat. But with
Louisa Ball, her parents woke her up and were like,
you have to eat. I don't know. This condition was
not a known diagnosis in the nineteenth century, and it
(31:21):
was a huge mystery of the time. Was that what
she had? Again, we don't know that diagnosis did not
exist then, and so they didn't really attempt to find out.
I don't think they attempted to find out what was
going on period. It seems like at every turn they
were trying to confirm their own beliefs and theories. And
(31:43):
by day I mean doctor Stevens, the raw family, the venoms.
I don't think we're trying to confirm anything. I think
they just didn't want to put their daughter in an asylum,
and they're like, we will freaking try anything. Do I
think it's great that they just sent her, their teenage
daughter to live with this random ass family. For a
few months. No, I don't, but again, in this case,
(32:06):
I think it was probably better than going to an asylum.
That's at least that's my opinion. Anyway, much has been
said about this case, and many who still believe in
spiritualism or New Age thinking have pointed to it as
the most important evidence of their beliefs. However, evidence suggests
(32:26):
that paranormal researchers of the time, the parents' vulnerability and gullibility,
and the possibility that Laurency may have just had a
rare sleep disorder may prove this incident was not what
it seemed to be. Either way, the visions that Laurencey
had would eventually vanish, and like I said, by age
twenty one, they were gone and she lived out a
(32:48):
pretty normal life without the help of Mary's spirit. And
today people do still study this case. Over the years,
skeptics have tried to disprove it with no success. Well,
the reason and to that I say, the reason there's
no success is there was not really any study or
documentation of what was going on. They didn't have the
tools to do that back then. So no, there's no
(33:11):
way to disprove it because nobody was doing the things
they needed to do to provide a diagnosis, to gather evidence.
You know, everybody was just kind of like, oh, she
says she's this person, she knows shit must be her.
I really I just think it was an act of love,
possibly from Mary Roth. Like she had died at eighteen,
(33:32):
she had unfinished business. If this was indeed some sort
of a possession losing a child, I'm not even going
to think about it. It is the worst and most
painful experience for any parent. I hope I never go
through it. I hope no one I know ever goes
through it. The grief, the loss, the tragedy. It can
make you do crazy things. If you've ever lost someone
(33:52):
you love, you know that. And I consider the Rocks fortunate.
You know, they got a second chance with their daughter.
If it was really her. If it wasn't, it doesn't matter.
They believed that it was her. And although I have
no logical explanation for this entire thing, the Rough and
Venom families called it a miracle. And I think that's
(34:12):
fine if it gives someone comfort. As long as no
one was really hurt or abused, I think it's okay. Again,
do I know if it was real. No, I don't again,
because there's really no documentation of it, so to that
I have to say, what the fuck happened here? Obviously
(34:33):
we're not ever gonna know, uh laurencey Venom. I do
believe had had something going on, be it schizophrenia, be
it just depression, be it manic episode, maybe she had
bipolar disorder. We don't know these diagnoses. They did not
exist when she went through this, and the people who
(34:55):
were diagnosing her were not the kind of doctor if
they were a doctor at all, that could have made
any sort of qualified assessment. And even if they had
made it back then, it would have been totally wrong.
Again because these diagnoses did not exist then, there was
no like real scientific documentation or experimentation. They just kind
(35:19):
of took her at her word and assa. Roff jumped
on it obviously, as as any parent who loves their
child would and made it, made a big mistake that
you know, led to their child's death. The guilt, the shame,
just the trauma, the pain of it all and thinking
(35:39):
I have a second chance with my child, I have
a second chance to know they're okay. I have a
second chance to tell them that I'm sorry, and they
took it. And I don't know if it was just Laurency,
like maybe she read something about it, maybe she heard
something about it. Yeah, they lived in different times. I
don't really think that means anything. It was wealth The
(36:00):
Roths were a wealthy family. They had a daughter who
you know, went crazy, which is what people would have said,
and was put in an asylum and died there. So
I think that probably would have gotten talked about that
back then. Of course, like now you know that the
gossip mill. Sure it might get on social media, but
that would be like number ten million down down the
(36:22):
line on the algorithm. You know what I'm saying. Of
most shocking things, people just be like saying horrible shit
back and no, that didn't happen in YadA, YadA, YadA.
I'm just saying like back then, there wasn't a whole
lot to talk about. There wasn't social media, there wasn't
like in some places electricity. They didn't have any sort
of entertainment except for really books and newspapers and maybe
(36:43):
magazines if they existed in you know, in circulation. Where
these people lived, they didn't have a lot and they
lived in a small town. So I'm just saying she
absolutely could have heard some details. Asa Roff could have
been speaking in front of Laurence while she was in
a trance like state, you know, like while she was asleep.
She could have maybe not been asleep. She could have
(37:03):
just been listening and learning, and maybe she felt bad
for this family and maybe she's like, you know what,
I'm gonna just do something really nice and give these
people the closure they need. Because how odd is it
that she just snaps out of it, snaps out of it,
the stuff never happens again when she's twenty one. That's strange, right,
Like you were allegedly possessed by the ghost of a girl.
(37:26):
You went to live with their family for a few months.
Really all you did was comfort them, like nothing but
good things. You didn't go there and were out of
control and violent. And it's really also strange to me
that they're just like in life, their daughter was so
violent and such a problem, the roths. You know that
they had to send her to an asylum where she died.
(37:47):
But when she comes back and inhabits the body of
this other girl, she's sweet and ducile and this and
that and loving. I'm like, that doesn't sound like the
daughter you described at all. It sounds like you just
really really want to talk to your daughter, tell you're
sorry and to know that she's okay, And there's nothing
wrong with that, But you put it on a freaking
teenage girl who seems to be going through her own shit,
(38:09):
and I think that's pretty unfair of that family. But again,
grief does really strange things to you, truly, Like I
had some like, as you know, had someone extremely close
to me die very tragically twenty years ago, and I
still grieve that. It's not always grieving the person, because
(38:31):
I was not on good terms with that person. But
it's not always about grieving the person. It's just about
grieving the loss and your own guilt and your own
what if, what if what? It's always what if? You know,
what if I done this? What if I've done that?
And for the Raw family, it was what if we
hadn't sent our daughter to an asylum? What if we
just kept her here? What if we just rode out
the storm? Like they could have looked around? There could
(38:53):
have been something. There could have been some sort of
Eastern medicine, you know what I mean that existed back
then there could have been some sort of homeopathic They
could have experimented with things to see if they found
anything that helped whatever psychological illness she had. Marry Roth,
that is Laurency. I think maybe, and I'm not like
(39:15):
besmirching her or anything. I think she might have just
been having like a little case of boredom. She was
having really severe stomach pains. I think that possibly could
have just been like stress ulcers. Maybe just a period,
you know what I mean. Oh God, I just I'm
so sorry I said that. I'm not going like, are
you on your period? We're not chalking it up to
her period. I'm just saying maybe she had like peacoast,
(39:37):
Maybe she had endometriosis. Maybe she had any freaking number
of things that did not yet have like a diagnosis,
did not yet even exist for and wouldn't for a
long time. And even though those diagnoses exist now, like
peacoast and endometriosis, still nobody knows jack shit about him,
right Like you girl, As women, I think we we
(40:01):
all know, like every time something's wrong with us, what
do they say, hormones, lose weight? You know your diet,
Have you considered you're crazy? Have you considered it's in
your head. Really, not a whole lot has changed. They
are just names for these afflictions now, and still like
(40:22):
not really a ton of treatment, and certainly not any
kind of a cure. Really, just a whole lot of
calling us crazy. All of that to say, nothing has
changed in like more than one hundred years, which is
absolutely maddening. Do I think that she was like, would
it be cool if if this spirit went into this
girl who was having some trouble in her life and
(40:45):
healed her physically and mentally, and was this benevolent spirit
and she wanted to go back and live with their
family and make things right with them. I don't know. No,
I don't. I don't. I don't really think that happened.
If something was inhabiting the body of Laurency Venom, I
don't think that it was Mary Roth because again, the
way that she was behaving while in laurencey Venom's body
(41:08):
does not sound like the way that she had behaved
in life. And also I don't believe that human beings
in terms of you know, Biblical text, human beings do
not ascend to angels. Angels are not people like human beings.
They are their own classic thing like Cherubin, Seraphim, Nephelim,
all those things. They exist as those holy beings and
(41:30):
they are not like made like someone does not go
to heaven and ascend to the position of angel. So
her saying she sees angels and all these things and
is communicating with dead people, I don't know. Maybe she is,
Maybe she was indeed some sort of a spirit medium.
Maybe she has like some sort of gift of sight.
And like I've said like a million times, I don't
(41:52):
think that ghosts like are what we think they are.
I've said it before, I'll say it again. I don't
think that I think that they are some sort of energy.
I think that all people's energy. And this is backed
up by the laws of physics. Matter can't be destroyed.
So when somebody dies, your whole body is run by electricity, right,
(42:15):
and your whole body is made of matter. Anything, anything
that has atoms, and your whole body is made of
atoms is matter. So where does that matter go when
we die? It can't be destroyed, right, so it's got
to be recycled. Where's it going? I don't know. Does
it just stay out for a while, does it choose
a body to inhabit. Is that what reincarnation is. I
(42:39):
think in you know, fifty one hundred years, will know
what ghosts really are and spirits and you know, have
explanations for so many things that we think are supernatural
because you know, think again one hundred years ago, when
people believed that some people were possessed, and now we
know it's like schizophrenia or bipolar disorder, things like that.
We're like, no, they're not really seeing anything, and if
(43:01):
they are, it's hallucinations, it's in their own brain. There's
medication for that. You know, science explains most what people
but most of what people thought was magic in the past,
and what we think is magic or you know, paranormal now,
probably in a few years, like maybe a few decades,
(43:23):
I don't know, we'll have a like an actual explanation
for and yeah, that takes the fun out of paranormal
and ghost stories, but it's still something entirely different and
it's something we don't understand. But again I think we
will one day. And that is the case of the
what Seka wonder, laurencey Venom slash Mary Roth slash grief
(43:47):
and you know, just longing and pain and decisions and
regret and how they affect us all. I think that
really is the true crux of this case. Well, if
you like what you hear, you can hear more episodes
when I get a goddamn minute. I'm sorry when I
(44:08):
can freaking post them. I try so hard. I love
you all, and I really hate to disappoint you. I
really am trying. You'll hear them hopefully every Friday, released
on all podcast platforms, and maybe they'll be a day late.
And I'm really trying. I'm one woman doing way too
friggin much as we all are, and we are all
entitled to a good, solid mental breakout crash out session
(44:33):
at come to my house, we'll have one. We'll all
just scream into the void we'll open. We'll go Tocern.
Let's do it. Let's go to Switzerland. Let's get them
to open a black hole again. Let's get them do that.
Let's get them to create a freaking black hole, and
we'll all scream into it. Maybe we'll jump into it,
maybe we'll get to a better breaking dimension. Because they
also confirmed the extents the existence of parallel freaking dimensions.
(44:57):
Do I think that's cern fucked up and put us
all in to a different one years ago when they
created the God part or recreated the God particle, and
you know, turn the Hadron collider on and no, it's
too much black holes, nonsense, wormholes. They're fucking with us.
They need to turn that motherfucker off. There's a reason,
(45:19):
like we're not ever gonna understand it. We're not gonna
understand the secrets of the universe as far as like
outer space goes and wormholes and Einstein Rosen bridges and
all of that stuff, Like we understand it in theory
but not in reality. Did CERN and those scientists in
Switzerland fuck us all? And we are currently living in
an alternate dimension. Who's to say, I don't know who's
(45:42):
in charge anymore? You know what I'm saying? Who let
them do that? Who's like, yeah, just go ahead, fuck
with the entire universe. We give you her mission. I
certainly didn't. No one consulted me anyway. Mental breakdown, crash
out session, screaming into the void in the black hole
at CERN in SWA. We'll schedule it around Christmas, okay,
like when everybody's off, sound good, Like I think we
(46:05):
have all earned it. And if you want to follow
me on social media and see the insane shit that
I repost and the memes that I've started to create. Uh,
you know, with my own mental illness, I'm sure I
would have been putting an asylum because I'm I'm bisexual
and a woman and have a lot of ideas and
(46:26):
depression and anxiety and most likely autism and probably ADHD.
I would have most certainly been institutionalized if I had
ever opened my mouth, like certainly, if I had done
anything like this and recorded it, and you know, for posterity,
I would have been thrown in an asylum. Get on
social media and check that out. You know, what good
has living life if you wouldn't have been thrown in
(46:47):
an asylum or burned as a witch back in the day,
It's not really you ain't living a life. Social media
Instagram at autumn Podcast, Threads at Autumn Zodcast, Facebook at autumns, Oodities,
and Patreon at Autumns. To tease, thank you, I appreciate
you listening, and remember, if it's creepy and weird, you'll
find it here.
Hey, Hey, welcome back to Autumn's oddities. I'm Autumn, y'all.
October has been kicking my ass. I am losing a
fight that I did not know I was in. It's
almost like the universe knows that this is my favorite
time of year and has just decided like it's gonna
throw everything at me at once. Somebody hit my son's car.
(00:55):
I gave it to him like a month and a
half ago, and they took off. Unlucky for that person,
there was a witness and the girl found her real
quick and made her pay the repairs out of pocket.
And for the past two weeks, I have been dealing
like NonStop with the body shop and little Miss Hit
and Run, also while working my bizarre schedule and attempting
(01:18):
to see my family. You know, we really can have
it all. No, we can't. It is a myth. We
cannot have it all, like there's not enough hours in
the day. Truly, that's a cliche, but it's true. My
absolutely vital equipment for work has been malfunctioning, and I'm
ready to just go ahead and set fire to everything
and move my entire family off the grid. You know,
(01:39):
I'm just having a tiny little baby Mintie Bee. I've
earned it. I think we all have. And speaking of
what some believed to be a mental breakdown, today's case
is either one about a possession by ghost or a
girl who's diagnosis was just very misunderstood, and also, I believe,
(02:00):
just the grief of parents who were hoping to talk
to their daughter one last time. At the height of
the spiritualist movement of the late nineteenth century, which I've done,
an episode about an obscure and sickly teen in a
small Midwest town became a celebrity. Whether it was the
effects of mental illness or an undiagnosed sleep disorder, or
(02:23):
another option. An actual case of possession. Mary laurencey Venom
was thrust onto a national stage by true believers who
were convinced that she had special powers to talk to
the dead. Dubbed the Watsika Wonder, Venom attracted spiritualists from
her home state of Illinois and the surrounding Midwest region
(02:46):
of the United States. They came to see this girl,
believing that she was possessed by the benevolent spirit of
Mary Roff. Benevolent even though she's taking over someone's body
who was a local teen who died in an asylum
exactly thirteen years before Venom's first episode of quote possession.
(03:08):
Many hoped that she'd be the proof they needed to
confirm their beliefs in the afterlife. Yet two people, her parents,
Thomas and Laurinda Venom, just hoped to keep her out
of an asylum. Mary Laurency Venom, known as Rancy Rancy Comora,
I'm sorry, I can't help it, Rancy Anyone, was born
(03:30):
on April sixteenth, eighteen sixty four, in Watseka, Illinois, a
small town one hundred miles south of Chicago. The story
of the wat Cicca Wonder, of course, named after the
town where this incident took place, so easy, began on
the morning of July sixth, eighteen seventy seven. Thirteen year
old Laurence had awakened feeling ill and frightened. She told
(03:53):
her parents about a disturbing incident that occurred to her
the previous night, in which mysterious people entered her room, yelling, Rancy, Rancy,
that was me. I came. I traveled back in time.
Uh you know. I went to Cerne in Switzerland or
wherever it is, and I had them put me in
the Hadron collider. I went back in time and I
(04:14):
screamed Rancy Ramsey because I thought it sounded like fun.
And you know again, I have I have a lot
of free time. I've got so much free time that
I had. I had the time to do that, to
travel to Switzerland to be placed in the large Hadron collider.
Let's all go next time, okay. A week passed with
no other incidents. Then, while helping her mother stitch a
(04:34):
broken seam on a carpet, she stood up and said
that she didn't feel well. Suddenly, she fainted, only to
come two five hours later. Obviously, this was a frightening
moment for missus Venom, and when Laurencey emerged from this
agonizing episode, the mother as well as Laurency may have
(04:55):
felt the worst was behind them. They were wrong. This
was a only the beginning, and things were going to
take a turn for the bizarre. It wouldn't be long
before her condition worsened. Laurencey suffered from excruciating abdominal pains
in addition to the fainting spells. However, the symptoms took
(05:15):
on a new dimension. She began to murmur in her
unconscious state about strange visions of beings she referred to
as angels. And once that kind of start, like, once
that kind of talk, you know, starts up, it's probably
time to go to doctor, uh, not like a not
(05:36):
like a medical like general practitionery. You need to go
to like a brain doctor. You know. That's probably what
they called him back then. Also, some reports, not substantiated
by really any sources, claimed that she was speaking in
different voices, and when she awoke, she would not remember
a thing that occurred to her during these hours long,
(05:57):
sometimes up to eight hours episodes, so she would go unconscious.
You know, according to her, she was unconscious, she remembered
nothing hours long. Sometimes she was just unconscious, like asleep,
and sometimes she was saying things in different voices. The
next day, while apparently in a trance like state, she
(06:18):
said she could see spirits of the dead, including her
deceased sister and brother. So here we go, we're already
kind of kind of like laying the foundation. It's like,
all right, clearly this girl has had some tragedy in
her life. Her brother and sister have died, and now
she's saying she's seeing them along with angels. So you know,
(06:42):
maybe there's some unprocessed grief trauma. This was, you know,
a very long time ago. They were still a bottomizing
people the human brain. We still don't know a whole
lot about it, So just imagine back then, really really
archaic stuff. Over the next two months, she had a
(07:03):
number of similar like trance incidences describing heaven and angels.
In September she appeared to return to normality, and remember
these started up in July. Then again in November she
began experiencing severe stomach pains five or six times a day.
The following month, she entered a trance state and again
(07:25):
began seeing angels. These trances continued over the next seven weeks,
during which time she often appeared to be in a
state of ecstasy. Odd to local physicians and the family's
methodist minister because you know their brain. Doctors all concluded
she was insane and just recommended that she be sent
(07:46):
to an asylum immediately. And if we know anything about
you know, back then, it was as soon as somebody
became an inconvenience to you and you had the ability
to put them away, and it was usually women. That's
that's what the people chose to do like, oh, well,
she's kind of, you know, becoming irritating to us. She's
fucking up our sleep, she's saying weird shit. I think
(08:06):
I think she's crazy. Put her in the asylum. And
you know that went on for quite a while. If
you had anything going on with you that was considered
outside of the norm, you were typically put in an asylum.
You can watch American Horror Story Asylum that's a fine
example of that at season two, and in Briarcliffe Asylum
is where it's set. I believe it's based on a
(08:28):
real case where a journalist was put into an asylum
because they were gay. And back then that was considered
a mental illness and was indeed illegal, so they were
allowed to whoever they are, were just allowed to lock
up people who were gay. Oddly enough, there was one
thing that Laurencey did remember from these episodes. Again, she
(08:50):
claimed she was talking to the dead with what little
they knew at the time, and really it was very little.
Doctors who examined her were convinced that Laurency was mentally ill. Again,
come on, the only treatment for mental illness was indeed
confinement in the state insane asylum. In Peoria, Illinois, which
(09:10):
by all accounts was a dire place, somewhere you did
not want to go. And like I said, for all
intents and purposes, asylums of the nineteenth century were dumping grounds.
There's really no other way to put it. Patients that
these places often face treatments that were barbaric and far
worse than whatever affliction had brought them to those institutions. Also,
(09:34):
most who entered would never see the outside world again.
They were just confined to the hospital for the rest
of their lives. They typically died there. And if they weren't,
you know, mentally ill or insane clinically before, they were
made that way by just horrendously barbaric treatments like electroshock therapy,
heat therapy, like you know, they would put them in
(09:56):
a scalding hot bath and put like a rubber thing
over the entire bath and only lent person's head poke out.
Oh lord, all kinds of shit like that, just medicating
them into oblivion, beating them everything you can possibly think of.
The venoms were faced with this dilemma. Did they send
their daughter to the state insane asylum or did they
(10:19):
keep her at home and away from the public, which
of course was another option for parents at the time. Apparently,
it explains why so many movies and shows that are
set in the past to have secret children in the attic.
Let's Goonies, for example. I'm just thinking of like a
funny one. They've got friggin' sloth up in the attic
and they're just like leave him with a TV and
a bunch of food because he's different. Like, and that's
(10:42):
what happened back then. Laurency was to be spared the asylum. Thankfully,
word miraculously got out about her visions and supernatural talents.
It wouldn't be long before bands of true believers within
the spiritualist movement would pay her visits to seek her
wisdom and guidance. The Frail and Sickly teen was becoming
(11:03):
a popular and some said, powerful medium between the spirit
between the living and the spirits of the dead. This
new chapter in Laurencey's life started in January of eighteen
seventy eight, when a resident of Watsika came to pay
the family a visit. Asa Roff once had a daughter, Mary,
who suffered from the same conditions that Laurencey had. Eventually
(11:27):
he had to make the same choice that the Venoms
had made. It would be a mistake that would haunt
him for the rest of his life, because Mary would
eventually die in confinement at the asylum. ASA's presence at
the Venom household that day was simple. He was there
for one reason. He was begging them not to send
Laurenzy away. Here's another layer, right, So this man had
(11:51):
a daughter who's who had seen you know, had these episodes,
said I'm communicating with dead people. He listened to doctors
and air quotes. I think like anybody could be a
doctor back in the day, pretty much like maybe a
school for like five minutes. I think pretty much any
white dude could be like, I'm a doctor, she's insane.
(12:13):
Put her in an asylum, and you know, somebody would
do it. But Asa Roff and his wife made the
decision to send their daughter to an asylum, and she
died there. And clearly he and his wife were dealing
with a lot of guilt from having made that choice.
And as well intentioned as Asa was, he also had
(12:34):
other motives. Asa believed that his daughter's spirit still existed,
and he was a firm believer in spiritualism. And as
we know, it was kind of a cult like religious
movement that centered around the belief that one can communicate
with the dead. Asa was so convinced that Laurencey was
a medium that he brought in fellow spiritualist doctor E.
(12:56):
Winchester Stevens. Tell me what he's a doctor of? Really, Like,
what's the a doctor of? I'd like to know to
examine Laurency on his behalf if possible. Assa may have
thought Laurency could contact his daughter Mary. So who's Mary Roth? Well,
she's the girl who'd eventually become part of Laurencey's life,
(13:17):
and she had been a sick girl for the entirety
of her very short life. She suffered from epilepsy and
other mental illnesses, including hearing mysterious voices in her head
and falling into trance like states of unconsciousness. And again,
I'm not a doctor anymore so than most of these
people were in the eighteen hundreds. That sounds like schizophrenia
(13:41):
to me. Again, I'm not a doctor because I wasn't
a white man in the eighteen hundreds who just said
I was. Throughout the years, Mary grew violent as the
illness took hold of her. Finally, when she was a teen,
Ausa was forced to have her committed after she slashed
her arm with a straight razor. On July fifth, eighteen
sixty five, Mary's troubled life came to an end at
(14:04):
the State Mental Asylum in Peoria. Whether it was the
similarities that existed between the two girls in the same
town or something else entirely, Asa was convinced that Laurencey
was the person who could reach Mary from the beyond.
As time went by, Asa became more convinced that Laurencey
wasn't just able to communicate with Mary, she was conjuring
(14:27):
Mary and allowing her to speak through her. That he
thought that Lawrencey was some sort of a conduit for
his daughter to come through. The child regarded her own
family as strangers and instead showed affection towards the family
of the dead girl, whose memories she exhibited as her own. Still,
one story suggests that the connection between the two girls
(14:49):
came about after doctor Stevens mesmerized because that's what they
used to call hypnosis. He mesmerized her and began to
talk to the spirits believed to be within Laurency and
within moments of that hypnosis session, Lorency began speaking in
another voice, which allegedly came from a spirit named Katrina Hogan.
(15:12):
A few moments later, the voice changed and claimed to
be that of Willie Canning, a young man who had
committed suicide. After an hour of speaking in Willy's voice,
she suddenly threw her arms into the air and collapsed.
Doctor Stevens managed to calm Laurency down, and after he
calmed her down, Laurencey's voice changed once again, and this
(15:33):
time she claimed she was in heaven and was allowing
a gentler spirit to control her. That particular spirit was
Mary Roth. Eventually, after the mesmerizing session, the spirit of
Mary revisited. The effects were positive on both the Venom
and Roth families. For Laurencey's parents, they didn't have to
(15:56):
send their child to an insane asylum, and for Asa,
he had perceived connection to his dead daughter. And again,
I think this is more than anything a story about
grief and loss. But for the spiritualist this was all
the convincing they needed to them. This was proof that
(16:16):
the spirits of the dead were trying to contact the living. Yet,
a closer look at the evidence of Laurencey's possession does
bring about some questions. Hypnotism is a therapy that has
indeed been thrown out of criminal courts for its unreliability.
I e. Go back to the Michelle Remembers episode where
under hypnosis, this lady said the craziest shit You've ever
(16:40):
heard in your life and brought about the entire Satanic
panic movement of the friggin nineteen eighties, destroyed a lot
of lives. Her and her air quotes therapist who she
ended up marrying all kinds of conflicts of interest. Either way,
hypnotism not reliable. Also, study have shown that people under
(17:01):
this condition can be persuaded or manipulated into giving answers
that the person conducting the hypnosis wanted a doy. Also,
another justification needs to be closely examined for its authenticity.
Many websites touting Lawrencey's ability as a medium pointed to
the personal details that she seemed to know about Mary
(17:22):
Roff when she was in a trance. Many supporters on
one of these sites make arguments that the two girls
never met and they also grew up in different times,
but they did have something in common. Assa Roff, the
man who started the whole possession story, the one who
made the suggestions in the first place, the one who
(17:43):
brought the doctors around, who hypnotized her. Doctor Stevens first
visited the Venom family in January nineteen seventy eight, accompanied
by Asa Roff. They found Lorency sitting near the stove,
looking sullen and crabbed. We got to bring that back
crab I assume that means like pissed off, but this
is a quote from them, sullen and crabbed. I'm crabbed.
(18:06):
I'm crabbed today. When Stevens asked her name, she replied
Katrina Hogan, giving her ages sixty three and saying she
was from Germany. After this brief conversation, so we're going
into the details of what she said under this mesmerization.
After this brief conversation, she abruptly changed personalities and claimed
to be the man known as Willie Canning. Willy then
(18:29):
started interrogating doctor Stevens, asking about his beliefs and whether
he went to church and liked to smoke and drink.
And I'd be like, it's not any a business, sir,
And after an hour and a half, Laurencey fell on
the floor and went into a trance. She then began
answering doctor stephens questions with rationality and understanding. She apologized
(18:50):
for having such evil conditions about her and said she
knew the evil spirits, calling themselves Katrina and Willie. Doctor
Stevens suggested that she look around her for a higher, purer,
more intelligent, and more rational spirit to control her. Why
this man is saying let a spirit into your body
and let it take control of you. I don't know
(19:12):
if that's real. Don't suggest it. Why in God's name
would you do that? But Laurencey then said that there
were a great many spirits willing to come, and that
one angel stepped forward, giving her name as Mary roth
and Oseroff immediately identified her as his daughter. Laurencey then
(19:33):
declared that she would let she was going to allow
Mary Roff to take over her body for a period
of time, absolutely not, and her personality then changed from
the described by her parents wild and ungovernable girl that
she had been in recent months to become mild, polite
and somewhat timid. She claimed to know none of the
(19:56):
Venom family her own family, and said that she wanted
to go home. Upon hearing of this situation, Mary Roff's
older sister, Minerva Alter, the wife of a physician, paid
a visit to the Venom home in the company of
her mother, Anne Roth. There comes my mom's sister, Nervi,
Rancy exclaimed, using Mary's pet name for Minerva, a name
(20:18):
not heard by anyone since Mary had died. After that reunion,
Rancy as Mary Roff became even more homesick and begged,
begged to be allowed to go home because Laurencey had
become such a problem. The Venoms reluctantly consented, and in
February they did send Laurencey to the Roff's home. She
(20:41):
greeted her paw and maw and each member of the
family with hugs and shows of affection. Asked how long
she would stay, she replied, the Angels will let me
stay until sometime in May. And over the next three months,
Laurencey as Mary Roff recognized old neighbors and friends. For instance,
when Missus Parker and her daughter in law nell came
(21:04):
a call in, Rancy greeted them as Auntie Parker and Nellie.
Laurencey asked Auntie Parker if she remembered when she Mary
Roff and Nervy used to come to her house and sing,
something which both Missus Parker and Nervy they did both
obviously remember. When another former neighbor visited, Laurencey called her
(21:25):
Missus Lord, the name Mary had known her by when
she was a widow, although by this time she had
since remarried and become Missus Wagner. Asa Roff frequently tested
the girl by asking questions about Mary's life. On one occasion,
he asked if she remembered a trip to Texas in
eighteen fifty seven. Yes, Pa, she replied, and I remember
(21:47):
crossing Red River and of seeing a great many Indians,
and I remember Missus Reeder's girls who were in our company.
During the first month in the rough home, Laurencey refused
to eat, explaining to her parents that her nourishment was
coming from heaven and it was necessary for her to
refrain from food until the body was ready. However, she
(22:09):
did eventually come to eat with a family. On February nineteenth,
aser Roff wrote the following letter to doctor Stevens. You
know how he took the poor dear girl Laurencey Mary
in quotation or in parentheses Mary. Some appreciate our motives,
but the many, without investigation and without knowledge of the facts,
(22:30):
cry out against us and against the Angel Girl. Some
say she pretends. Others say that she's crazy, and we
hear that. Some say it is the devil. Mary is
perfectly happy. She recognizes everybody and everything that she knew
when in her body twelve or more years ago. She
knows nobody nor anything whatever that is known to Laurencey.
(22:53):
Mister Venom has been to see her and also her
brother Henry at a different time, but she don't know
anything about them. Missus Venom is still unable to come
and see her daughter. She has been nothing but Mary
since she has been here and knows nothing but what
Mary knew. She has entered the trance once every other
day for some days. She is perfectly happy. You don't
(23:16):
know how much comfort we take with the dear Angel Again,
does this not just sound like parents who regret their
decision to send their child away and they're literally just
clinging onto anything in the hope that you know, their
daughter forgives them and is okay wherever she's at, and
that they can still speak to her. Raph further informed
(23:39):
doctor Stevens that during her trance states, other spirits would
frequently speak through her. One day, the voice of someone
who claimed to have lived and died in Tennessee spoke
through Rancy and told him that Mary would retain control
of Laurencey's body until it was restored to good health.
Minerva Alter also wrote to doctor Stevens about about her sister,
(24:02):
stating a few days ago Mary was caressing her father
and mother and they became a little tired of it
and asked why she hugged and kissed them. She sorrowfully
looked at them and said, oh, Pa and Ma, I
want to kiss you while I have lips to kiss
you with, and hug you while I have arms to
hug you with. For I am going to heaven before long,
(24:24):
and then I can be with you only in spirit,
and you will not always know when I come, and
I cannot love you as I can now, Oh how
much I love you? All red flags all over the place.
On May seventh, Rancy slash Mary took Mary's mother and
raw aside and told her that Laurencey Venom was coming back.
(24:45):
A change of personality then took hold and the girl
asked Anne where she was, began crying and said she
wanted to go home. However, after about five minutes, Mary
returned to Rancy's body. On May twenty first, Assa Roff
recorded in a letter to doctor Stevens, Mary is to
leave the body of Rancy today about eleven o'clock, so,
(25:07):
she says. She is bidding neighbors and friends goodbye. She
tells me to write doctor Stevens as follows, tell him
I am going to heaven and Rancy is coming home. Well.
She says she will see your dear children in spirit life.
She talked most lovingly about the separation to take place,
and most beautiful was her talk about heaven and her home.
(25:30):
At eleven o'clock on the dot, Rancy returned and was
speaking to Ossa Roff as if he was a stranger,
and asked to be taken to her home. She lived
a normal life from then on. Rancy continued to live
with her parents until her marriage to George Benning in
eighteen eighty two, and two years after that the couple
(25:52):
moved to Kansas. It was reported that Mary would occasionally
take control of Rancy's body in subsequent years, but her
husband did object to this and said it wasn't true
and asked people to stop talking about it. After Rancy
returned to her normal life, doctor Stevens compared her handwriting
with that of Rancy during the three month period that
(26:12):
she was allegedly marry and found them to be significantly different.
And to that, I say, you can't change your handwriting,
I sure can. And also was he a handwriting expert?
Were there even handwriting experts back then? Lots and lots
and lots and lots of questions. In eighteen seventy nine,
(26:33):
doctor Stevens published a report of the case, which included
testimonials regarding the good character of Asa Roff, as well
as several newspaper accounts of the story. One such report
from the Iroquois County Times ended, it is hard for
even the most skeptical not to believe there was something
supernatural about her. If she was not prompted by the
(26:55):
spirit of Mary Roff, how could she know so much
about the family, people with whom she was not acquainted
and whom she had never visited. In eighteen ninety, Richard Hodgson,
an investigator attached to the American branch of the Society
for Psychical Research visited Watseka and interviewed witnesses of the events.
(27:16):
I have no doubt that the incidents occurred substantially as
described in the narrative by doctor stevens. Hodgson, reported, adding
that the only explanation other than spiritualistic was that Laurency
had a secondary personality with super normal powers, which is
a theory he regarded as more fantastical. That one is
(27:39):
a bridge too far. I guess that one is a
bridge too far for this guy who's in the Society
of Psychical Research. In a nineteen oh three book, psychologist
Frank Sargent Hoffman, not himself a witness to any of
the events, speculated that it was a case of here
we go hysterical personation? Is this age? That is? Rancy
(28:02):
had heard enough gossip about Mary Roff over the years that,
having become mentally unbalanced and exhibiting the same symptoms as Rancy,
decided to impersonate her. Similarly, Henry Addington Bruce, an American journalist,
speculated that this was a case of multiple personality in
which a secondary personality buried in Rancy's subconscious surfaced and
(28:26):
telepathically read the minds of the roths concerning Mary's life,
thereby tricking them into thinking she was really their daughter.
This is way too much and just exhibits really like
they did not know jack shit about mental illness in psychology, psychiatry, YadA, YadA.
(28:47):
They didn't know anything back then. They're like, yes, there
must be another personality very deep down inside that is
uh impersonating this girl. She's learned everything and she's she's
doing a bang up job. But what might modern diagnosis
reveal well, The symptoms that Lorency exhibited are similar to
a very rare sleep disorder called Klein Leven syndrome, also
(29:10):
known as sleeping beauty syndrome. Although it typically afflicts adolescent males,
it does occasionally strike teenage girls as well. In fact,
there's a pretty recent case and it was it occurred
in a fifteen year old girl named Louisa Ball of
the United Kingdom. Louisa was diagnosed with Klin Leven syndrome,
(29:31):
and that is an incurable autoimmune disorder that some researchers
say disrupts the hypothalamus, the part of the brain that
regulates appetite, sleep, and libido. KLS, as it's abbreviated more
often does afflict males, usually beginning with a virus during
adolescents that seems to trigger like prolonged periods of sleep
(29:53):
and aggressiveness along with hyper sexuality. And you can kind
of see some of the hyper sexuality in like the
way over the top touching and caressing and kissing of
this family that was not Laurencies. I'm not saying that's
you know, hyper sexuality can mean a lot of things.
It doesn't mean like having sex. It just means being
(30:17):
like extremely affectionate, more affectionate than you would have ever been.
And I think that could possibly qualify for some of
some of her behavior during her trance like states in
her time with the Rough family. Mood stabilizers like lithium
and hormone therapies help those with KLS, you know, just
around the edges, but they don't ward off the extreme sleep,
(30:39):
and those periods of sleep can be like a few days.
But in the case of Louise's ball, she was waking up,
her parents were waking her up, and when she would
wake up, she would eat ravenously, which does indeed differ
from Laurency slash Mary but they were also taking the
the roths were taking everything that you know, Laurence Mary
(31:01):
was taking or was saying at face value, her saying
I'm not going to eat until Laurencey's body as well.
They were just like, okay, totally, like we we get
that totally. And then she eventually did eat. But with
Louisa Ball, her parents woke her up and were like,
you have to eat. I don't know. This condition was
not a known diagnosis in the nineteenth century, and it
(31:21):
was a huge mystery of the time. Was that what
she had? Again, we don't know that diagnosis did not
exist then, and so they didn't really attempt to find out.
I don't think they attempted to find out what was
going on period. It seems like at every turn they
were trying to confirm their own beliefs and theories. And
(31:43):
by day I mean doctor Stevens, the raw family, the venoms.
I don't think we're trying to confirm anything. I think
they just didn't want to put their daughter in an asylum,
and they're like, we will freaking try anything. Do I
think it's great that they just sent her, their teenage
daughter to live with this random ass family. For a
few months. No, I don't, but again, in this case,
(32:06):
I think it was probably better than going to an asylum.
That's at least that's my opinion. Anyway, much has been
said about this case, and many who still believe in
spiritualism or New Age thinking have pointed to it as
the most important evidence of their beliefs. However, evidence suggests
(32:26):
that paranormal researchers of the time, the parents' vulnerability and gullibility,
and the possibility that Laurency may have just had a
rare sleep disorder may prove this incident was not what
it seemed to be. Either way, the visions that Laurencey
had would eventually vanish, and like I said, by age
twenty one, they were gone and she lived out a
(32:48):
pretty normal life without the help of Mary's spirit. And
today people do still study this case. Over the years,
skeptics have tried to disprove it with no success. Well,
the reason and to that I say, the reason there's
no success is there was not really any study or
documentation of what was going on. They didn't have the
tools to do that back then. So no, there's no
(33:11):
way to disprove it because nobody was doing the things
they needed to do to provide a diagnosis, to gather evidence.
You know, everybody was just kind of like, oh, she
says she's this person, she knows shit must be her.
I really I just think it was an act of love,
possibly from Mary Roth. Like she had died at eighteen,
(33:32):
she had unfinished business. If this was indeed some sort
of a possession losing a child, I'm not even going
to think about it. It is the worst and most
painful experience for any parent. I hope I never go
through it. I hope no one I know ever goes
through it. The grief, the loss, the tragedy. It can
make you do crazy things. If you've ever lost someone
(33:52):
you love, you know that. And I consider the Rocks fortunate.
You know, they got a second chance with their daughter.
If it was really her. If it wasn't, it doesn't matter.
They believed that it was her. And although I have
no logical explanation for this entire thing, the Rough and
Venom families called it a miracle. And I think that's
(34:12):
fine if it gives someone comfort. As long as no
one was really hurt or abused, I think it's okay. Again,
do I know if it was real. No, I don't again,
because there's really no documentation of it, so to that
I have to say, what the fuck happened here? Obviously
(34:33):
we're not ever gonna know, uh laurencey Venom. I do
believe had had something going on, be it schizophrenia, be
it just depression, be it manic episode, maybe she had
bipolar disorder. We don't know these diagnoses. They did not
exist when she went through this, and the people who
(34:55):
were diagnosing her were not the kind of doctor if
they were a doctor at all, that could have made
any sort of qualified assessment. And even if they had
made it back then, it would have been totally wrong.
Again because these diagnoses did not exist then, there was
no like real scientific documentation or experimentation. They just kind
(35:19):
of took her at her word and assa. Roff jumped
on it obviously, as as any parent who loves their
child would and made it, made a big mistake that
you know, led to their child's death. The guilt, the shame,
just the trauma, the pain of it all and thinking
(35:39):
I have a second chance with my child, I have
a second chance to know they're okay. I have a
second chance to tell them that I'm sorry, and they
took it. And I don't know if it was just Laurency,
like maybe she read something about it, maybe she heard
something about it. Yeah, they lived in different times. I
don't really think that means anything. It was wealth The
(36:00):
Roths were a wealthy family. They had a daughter who
you know, went crazy, which is what people would have said,
and was put in an asylum and died there. So
I think that probably would have gotten talked about that
back then. Of course, like now you know that the
gossip mill. Sure it might get on social media, but
that would be like number ten million down down the
(36:22):
line on the algorithm. You know what I'm saying. Of
most shocking things, people just be like saying horrible shit
back and no, that didn't happen in YadA, YadA, YadA.
I'm just saying like back then, there wasn't a whole
lot to talk about. There wasn't social media, there wasn't
like in some places electricity. They didn't have any sort
of entertainment except for really books and newspapers and maybe
(36:43):
magazines if they existed in you know, in circulation. Where
these people lived, they didn't have a lot and they
lived in a small town. So I'm just saying she
absolutely could have heard some details. Asa Roff could have
been speaking in front of Laurence while she was in
a trance like state, you know, like while she was asleep.
She could have maybe not been asleep. She could have
(37:03):
just been listening and learning, and maybe she felt bad
for this family and maybe she's like, you know what,
I'm gonna just do something really nice and give these
people the closure they need. Because how odd is it
that she just snaps out of it, snaps out of it,
the stuff never happens again when she's twenty one. That's strange, right,
Like you were allegedly possessed by the ghost of a girl.
(37:26):
You went to live with their family for a few months.
Really all you did was comfort them, like nothing but
good things. You didn't go there and were out of
control and violent. And it's really also strange to me
that they're just like in life, their daughter was so
violent and such a problem, the roths. You know that
they had to send her to an asylum where she died.
(37:47):
But when she comes back and inhabits the body of
this other girl, she's sweet and ducile and this and
that and loving. I'm like, that doesn't sound like the
daughter you described at all. It sounds like you just
really really want to talk to your daughter, tell you're
sorry and to know that she's okay, And there's nothing
wrong with that, But you put it on a freaking
teenage girl who seems to be going through her own shit,
(38:09):
and I think that's pretty unfair of that family. But again,
grief does really strange things to you, truly, Like I
had some like, as you know, had someone extremely close
to me die very tragically twenty years ago, and I
still grieve that. It's not always grieving the person, because
(38:31):
I was not on good terms with that person. But
it's not always about grieving the person. It's just about
grieving the loss and your own guilt and your own
what if, what if what? It's always what if? You know,
what if I done this? What if I've done that?
And for the Raw family, it was what if we
hadn't sent our daughter to an asylum? What if we
just kept her here? What if we just rode out
the storm? Like they could have looked around? There could
(38:53):
have been something. There could have been some sort of
Eastern medicine, you know what I mean that existed back
then there could have been some sort of homeopathic They
could have experimented with things to see if they found
anything that helped whatever psychological illness she had. Marry Roth,
that is Laurency. I think maybe, and I'm not like
(39:15):
besmirching her or anything. I think she might have just
been having like a little case of boredom. She was
having really severe stomach pains. I think that possibly could
have just been like stress ulcers. Maybe just a period,
you know what I mean. Oh God, I just I'm
so sorry I said that. I'm not going like, are
you on your period? We're not chalking it up to
her period. I'm just saying maybe she had like peacoast,
(39:37):
Maybe she had endometriosis. Maybe she had any freaking number
of things that did not yet have like a diagnosis,
did not yet even exist for and wouldn't for a
long time. And even though those diagnoses exist now, like
peacoast and endometriosis, still nobody knows jack shit about him,
right Like you girl, As women, I think we we
(40:01):
all know, like every time something's wrong with us, what
do they say, hormones, lose weight? You know your diet,
Have you considered you're crazy? Have you considered it's in
your head. Really, not a whole lot has changed. They
are just names for these afflictions now, and still like
(40:22):
not really a ton of treatment, and certainly not any
kind of a cure. Really, just a whole lot of
calling us crazy. All of that to say, nothing has
changed in like more than one hundred years, which is
absolutely maddening. Do I think that she was like, would
it be cool if if this spirit went into this
girl who was having some trouble in her life and
(40:45):
healed her physically and mentally, and was this benevolent spirit
and she wanted to go back and live with their
family and make things right with them. I don't know. No,
I don't. I don't. I don't really think that happened.
If something was inhabiting the body of Laurency Venom, I
don't think that it was Mary Roth because again, the
way that she was behaving while in laurencey Venom's body
(41:08):
does not sound like the way that she had behaved
in life. And also I don't believe that human beings
in terms of you know, Biblical text, human beings do
not ascend to angels. Angels are not people like human beings.
They are their own classic thing like Cherubin, Seraphim, Nephelim,
all those things. They exist as those holy beings and
(41:30):
they are not like made like someone does not go
to heaven and ascend to the position of angel. So
her saying she sees angels and all these things and
is communicating with dead people, I don't know. Maybe she is,
Maybe she was indeed some sort of a spirit medium.
Maybe she has like some sort of gift of sight.
And like I've said like a million times, I don't
(41:52):
think that ghosts like are what we think they are.
I've said it before, I'll say it again. I don't
think that I think that they are some sort of energy.
I think that all people's energy. And this is backed
up by the laws of physics. Matter can't be destroyed.
So when somebody dies, your whole body is run by electricity, right,
(42:15):
and your whole body is made of matter. Anything, anything
that has atoms, and your whole body is made of
atoms is matter. So where does that matter go when
we die? It can't be destroyed, right, so it's got
to be recycled. Where's it going? I don't know. Does
it just stay out for a while, does it choose
a body to inhabit. Is that what reincarnation is. I
(42:39):
think in you know, fifty one hundred years, will know
what ghosts really are and spirits and you know, have
explanations for so many things that we think are supernatural
because you know, think again one hundred years ago, when
people believed that some people were possessed, and now we
know it's like schizophrenia or bipolar disorder, things like that.
We're like, no, they're not really seeing anything, and if
(43:01):
they are, it's hallucinations, it's in their own brain. There's
medication for that. You know, science explains most what people
but most of what people thought was magic in the past,
and what we think is magic or you know, paranormal now,
probably in a few years, like maybe a few decades,
(43:23):
I don't know, we'll have a like an actual explanation
for and yeah, that takes the fun out of paranormal
and ghost stories, but it's still something entirely different and
it's something we don't understand. But again I think we
will one day. And that is the case of the
what Seka wonder, laurencey Venom slash Mary Roth slash grief
(43:47):
and you know, just longing and pain and decisions and
regret and how they affect us all. I think that
really is the true crux of this case. Well, if
you like what you hear, you can hear more episodes
when I get a goddamn minute. I'm sorry when I
(44:08):
can freaking post them. I try so hard. I love
you all, and I really hate to disappoint you. I
really am trying. You'll hear them hopefully every Friday, released
on all podcast platforms, and maybe they'll be a day late.
And I'm really trying. I'm one woman doing way too
friggin much as we all are, and we are all
entitled to a good, solid mental breakout crash out session
(44:33):
at come to my house, we'll have one. We'll all
just scream into the void we'll open. We'll go Tocern.
Let's do it. Let's go to Switzerland. Let's get them
to open a black hole again. Let's get them do that.
Let's get them to create a freaking black hole, and
we'll all scream into it. Maybe we'll jump into it,
maybe we'll get to a better breaking dimension. Because they
also confirmed the extents the existence of parallel freaking dimensions.
(44:57):
Do I think that's cern fucked up and put us
all in to a different one years ago when they
created the God part or recreated the God particle, and
you know, turn the Hadron collider on and no, it's
too much black holes, nonsense, wormholes. They're fucking with us.
They need to turn that motherfucker off. There's a reason,
(45:19):
like we're not ever gonna understand it. We're not gonna
understand the secrets of the universe as far as like
outer space goes and wormholes and Einstein Rosen bridges and
all of that stuff, Like we understand it in theory
but not in reality. Did CERN and those scientists in
Switzerland fuck us all? And we are currently living in
an alternate dimension. Who's to say, I don't know who's
(45:42):
in charge anymore? You know what I'm saying? Who let
them do that? Who's like, yeah, just go ahead, fuck
with the entire universe. We give you her mission. I
certainly didn't. No one consulted me anyway. Mental breakdown, crash
out session, screaming into the void in the black hole
at CERN in SWA. We'll schedule it around Christmas, okay,
like when everybody's off, sound good, Like I think we
(46:05):
have all earned it. And if you want to follow
me on social media and see the insane shit that
I repost and the memes that I've started to create. Uh,
you know, with my own mental illness, I'm sure I
would have been putting an asylum because I'm I'm bisexual
and a woman and have a lot of ideas and
(46:26):
depression and anxiety and most likely autism and probably ADHD.
I would have most certainly been institutionalized if I had
ever opened my mouth, like certainly, if I had done
anything like this and recorded it, and you know, for posterity,
I would have been thrown in an asylum. Get on
social media and check that out. You know, what good
has living life if you wouldn't have been thrown in
(46:47):
an asylum or burned as a witch back in the day,
It's not really you ain't living a life. Social media
Instagram at autumn Podcast, Threads at Autumn Zodcast, Facebook at autumns, Oodities,
and Patreon at Autumns. To tease, thank you, I appreciate
you listening, and remember, if it's creepy and weird, you'll
find it here.
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