Scary Stories for the Soul

Nestled in a green, forested area of the Ozarks is The 1886 Crescent Hotel - a beautiful, castle-like resort surrounded by a tranquil forests where visitors can enjoy a star-filled view of the night sky. But The 1886 Crescent Hotel has a past so dark that it has been deemed America’s most haunted hotel.

Scary Stories for the Soul presents, “Torment at Cachtice," an original horror story about Katarina Papp, girl who was led to Elizabeth Bathory’s castle under false pretenses and endured indescribable pain.

Between 1590 and 1610, a small village nestled in the heart of Little Carpathia became the hunting ground for one of history’s most prolific serial killers. For the better part of 20 years Elizabeth Bathory, along with a crew of loyal followers , ruthlessly kidnapped, tortured, and murdered young women and girls, earning her the macabre moniker of “The Blood Countess.”

Let’s celebrate 100 episodes with an Espooky collaboration! Cristina, one of the hosts of Espooky Tales, joins us for a discussion about folklore, bonding over horror stories, and everything in between!

In preparation for 100 episodes, enjoy this special re-release of Episode 1 where we discuss the origin story of the Ouija board. The episode also features an original horror story about three girls who messed with a Ouija board, and lived to regret it.

Sometimes horrible things happen in the most mundane of places. The Cecil Hotel is an example of just this. By all intents and purposes, the Cecil should have been a run-of-the-mill hotel with swanky interior and even swankier guests. But a series of unfortunate events would turn this proposed haven for Los Angeles’s elite, into one of the most haunted hotels in the world. WARNING: This episode me...

Would you give anything to reach your goals? Achieve your musical dreams? Have your desires of fame and talent granted? Would you give up your soul, for the music? Some say that Robert Johnson, famed Blues musician, did just - trading his soul to the Devil to become the greatest Blues musician in history.

The Codex Gigas is a religious manuscript written by a 13th century monk that has been so famously dubbed “The Devil’s Bible.” Why? Because it contains a 20-inch tall illustrated portrait of Lucifer that might have been drawn by the Devil himself.

The Frauenkirche is a Gothic Catholic Church located in Munich, Bavaria, in southeastern Germany. A lthough architecturally it is quite beautifu l, the mysterious black footprint that forever mars one of the church's tiles is what attracts visitors - a mark known as The Devil’s Footprint.

Merry Christmas! This year, for our Christmas episode, let’s talk about some not so well known Christmas and Yule folklore and figured- the ones that bring a little spookiness to the Christmas and Yule season. The Ukrainian Christmas Spiders The Yule Cat And Frau Perchta, the Winter Witch Goddess

“Sleep paralysis” is defined as episodes of paralysis that occur while someone is awake, or in the middle of falling asleep. Little is known about what causes sleep paralysis. Many psychotherapists believe that the hallucinations experienced during these paralytic episodes are the reason behind most supposed paranormal events. But what if these episodes aren’t the reason for paranormal events, but...

Have you ever heard of Pareidolia? It is a psychological phenomena that occurs in humans where we think we see faces in different objects. We are desperate to find the familiar in unfamiliar, and sometimes dangerous circumstances. How many times have you thought that you saw eyes staring at you from your closet j ust for your brain to be playing tricks on you ? But what if something was there? Let...

Every exorcism and possession case is unique in its own right, but one thing that can always be agreed on is that the possessed individual always suffers. These people are never willing participants in the attacking of their souls. But what if they were? What if someone welcomed the possession? That is what our special Halloween original story is about. Scary Stories for the Soul Presents: The Fou...

Sitting in the Bel-Nor neighborhood of St. Louis, Missouri is a house with a dark history. Its brick exterior and white shutters makes it just as average and innocuous as the homes that surround it, but this was once the home of Roland Doe - the boy who would go on to inspire William Peter Blatty’s 1971 novel “The Exorcist,”and subsequently William Friedkin’s film of the same name.

At this point, we have all witnessed exorcisms taking place. Fictional ones, of course, but nonetheless, horror fans, and those poor souls that we have dragged to the movies with us, have all witnessed a young priest and an old priest, reciting the Rites of Exorcism over a writhing, spitting, tormented man, woman, or child. We’re scared but we know it's not real. We know they are playing character...

The thought of a minister or a reverend or a nun becoming possessed feels wrong on so many levels, but demons get brownie points for possessing and inhabiting the bodies and souls of those who have given themselves fully to God. However, t he overtly religious are taught that evil can wear many faces. If you’re expecting evil to be lurking in every dark corner, anything can seem like a sign from t...

There is a line in Arthur Miller’s 1953 play The Crucible, that reads, “What victory would the Devil have to win a soul already bad? It is the best the Devil wants, and who is better than the minister?” When we think of demonic possession, we think of random, wrong-place-wrong-time, bad luck of the draw happenstance. We don't think of the religiously devout, but maybe Arthur Miller was right - wha...

Halloween is here! Well, for the chronically obsessed it’s BEEN here, but now it’s officially official. Listen to this exclusive trailer to learn more about our special Halloween episodes. The topic this year: infamous cases of demonic possession!

Listen to The Legend of La Llorona, narrated in Spanish by published poet, Sandra Cortes

To celebrate the start of National Hispanic Heritage Month, we are releasing a remastered version of Episode 3: La Llorona! The legend of La Llorona is one that every Hispanic and Latin child has heard before. Children are warned never to be alone at night because La Llorona will take them away, and the legend changes from person to person and region to region.

Hungry Ghost Day is the one day of the year where all of the ghosts and spirits that have been dwelling in the Lower Realm can leave the Underworld and walk amongst the living. But the ghosts that walk the earth during the Hungry Ghost Festival are not those of our beloved dead ancestors who just popped in to say hello, or to tell us that they miss us. No, these spirits have a much more anguished...

The United States boasts an abnormal amount of haunted lighthouses, none of which hold a candle to Cape Romain Lighthouse on Lighthouse Island, in McClellanville, South Carolina. Cape Romain Lighthouse has seen murder and insanity, as has the lighthouse keeper of our original ghost story. When Daniel Merriwether is instructed with the care of a haunted lighthouse, he must do anything he can to sur...

Lighthouses are strange things. By definition and functionality, they are symbols of good, symbols of light. And yet there is something about them that also projects loneliness, isolation, and fear. There is a reason why lighthouses were very rarely entrusted in the hands of one person alone , but sometimes, even with someone there with you, things could still go horribly wrong. And that is exactl...

Laughter is contagious . In 1962, a small village near the border of Uganda became the prime example for just how wildly contagious laughter could be. There are still a lot of questions surrounding this particular incident that need to be answered but the most important one is really the simplest: What caused the Tanganyika Laughter Epidemic of 1962?

Dancing is one of those things that we almost have no control over. But w hat if you really couldn't help it? What if one day you woke up, walked out into the middle of town, started dancing, and just never stopped? It wouldn't be so fun then, would it? That is exactly what happened to the people of Strasbourg when the Dancing Plague of 1518 hit.