Lore 300: Board Stiff

Few objects from popular culture have been as divisive and mysterious as these simple games. But before you dismiss their sensational reputation, it's worth exploring the wreckage they have left in their wake. Narrated and produced by Aaron Mahnke, with writing by GennaRose Nethercott, research by Cassandra de Alba, and music by Chad Lawson. ————————— PRE-ORDER EXHUMED TODAY: aaronmahnke.com/exhumed https://www.aaronmahnke.com/exhumed ————————— Lore Resources: Get Ad-Free Lore: lorepodcast.com/support https://www.lorepodcast.com/support Episode Music: lorepodcast.com/music https://www.lorepodcast.com/music Episode Sources: lorepodcast.com/sources https://www.lorepodcast.com/sources Official Lore Merchandise: lorepodcast.com/shop https://www.lorepodcast.com/shop ————————— Sponsors: Squarespace: Head to Squarespace.com/lore http://squarespace.com/lore to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain using the code LORE. MeUndies: Slide into game changing comfort and get up to 50% off at MeUndies.com/lore https://www.meundies.com/lore with the promo code LORE. SimpliSafe: Secure your home with 24/7 professional monitoring. Sign up today at SimpliSafe.com/Lore http://simplisafe.com/lore to get 50% off a new SimpliSafe system. HomeServe: Help protect your home systems – and your wallet – against covered repairs. Plans start at just $4.99 a month at HomeServe.com https://www.homeserve.com. ————————— To report a concern regarding a radio-style, non-Aaron ad in this episode, reach out to ads @ lorepodcast.com with the name of the company or organization so we can look into it. To advertise on this podcast please email: [email protected]. Or go to: https://advertising.libsyn.com/lore ————————— ©2026 Aaron Mahnke. All rights reserved.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 1:12Aaron Mahnke?

  The future is impossible to predict. That's what rational people will tell you, confident in their belief that there's just no way to be absolutely certain about what's to come. And in a lot of ways, they're right. Take me, for example. Nearly 11 years ago, I started this podcast with a handful of topics that I wanted to write about. And I distinctly remember thinking, maybe five episodes in, that I could manage to find 20 subjects to cover. I simply could not envision a way to do this week after week for over a decade. And yet, here we are. In fact, if we don't count Lore Legends, today's episode is the 300th brand-new episode of Lore, which, yeah, I'm pretty dang proud of. But I certainly couldn't have predicted this outcome,

• 1:57Aaron Mahnke?

  no matter how much I would have wanted to. The fact is, we live in a world of instant access. We're spoiled. Miraculous devices in our pockets or on our laps that can locate just about any piece of knowledge. Free public libraries that open up a world of experiences just by walking in and opening up a book. And yet, despite that connection to everything we could possibly know, the future is a complete and total blank slate. Which, of course, means that people have always been trying to find new ways to cheat that system. Divination through an oracle, interpretation of dreams, and scrying mirrors. We humans have been very creative in our search for

• 2:38Aaron Mahnke?

  answers. But if history is any indication, there's one tool that has been more popular and more fear-inducing than all the others combined. And you might just have one in your own home. I'm Aaron Mahnke, and this is Lore.

• 3:12Aaron Mahnke?

  In December of 1918, a chilling letter landed on the desk of a businessman named Mr. William Fuld. Pened by a Mrs. Bolton from Kalamazoo, Michigan, it read, "Nights and day, the voice of that devil talked to me. I nearly died. No one knew what was the matter, and I would not believe the awful things or do the wicked things I was told to do, and if did, would be rewarded beyond measure." Almost two years later, on October 15 of 1920, another letter arrived. This one from Miss Helen Maria Peterson from Kilborn, Michigan. "It tells me many lies," she wrote, "and I am a woman who hates to be deceived. This is the second of your product I have.

• 3:54Aaron Mahnke?

  The first one I destroyed. It told me many lies, and the second one isn't much better." And these mysterious letters were far from the only missives to land on Mr. Fold's desk. Drows of them filled the mailbox, some like those of Miss Peterson and Mrs. Bolton, crying of evil, while others, like one from a Cass White from New Orleans, congratulating Mr. Fold on his product containing, and I quote, "a very good spirit." What on earth was Mr. Fold selling, you might ask? Well, that of course would be the Ouija board. As you may remember from our Ouiji-centric episode number 260, the talking board, or spirit board, started as a type of spiritualist folk art.

• 4:38Aaron Mahnke?

  But in the true American way, where spiritualists saw signs from the beyond, capitalists saw dollar signs. And in 1891, the Ouija board was officially granted a patent, becoming a mass-produced parlor game. It was manufactured by the Kennard Novelty Company, named for Charles Kennard, one of the same guys who had patented the board to begin with. But in 1892, Charles was ousted from his own company, and a humble Kennard Company varnisher managed to rise to power in the founder's stead. That varnisher's name was William Fold. And little did William know, but he would go down in history by another name entirely, the father of the Ouija board. And the tale of his rise and very literal fall

• 5:21Aaron Mahnke?

  may be just as weird and mysterious as the Ouija board itself. But first, a bit of background. William Fold was in his early twenties when he started running the ship over at the Ouiji factory. As one of a whopping ten children born to a German Jewish immigrant father and American mother, family was a big deal to William. I mean, with that many siblings, how could it not be, right? Which perhaps is why, when William took over the Ouiji board factory, he brought his brother Isaac along for the ride. He probably thought that it would be nice to turn the business into a family affair, but he couldn't have been more wrong. Now, no one's exactly sure what went down. Some family skeletons, it seems, are destined to stay in the closet. But what we do know is that in 1901,

• 6:06Aaron Mahnke?

  after years of working together, William changed his tune and banished Isaac from the company forever. And with that, it was on. The great Ouiji family feud began. For the next two decades, the Fold brothers battled it out in court. Allegedly, when one brother was in the family home and the other came calling, the first would scurry out the back door to avoid contact. You know, true, mature adult behavior. At one point, Isaac even had the tiny corpse of his own infant daughter disinterred from the family plot and moved across town out of mere spite. But it all came to a head when Isaac debuted a brand-new product of his own. It was called "The Oriole." And, well, "brand-new" might be a stretch,

• 6:50Aaron Mahnke?

  because the Oriole, you see, was a talking board. And it happened to be made from stencils that he had secretly stashed away from his days at the Ouija board factory. You could even see the spot where he had cut out the word "Ouija" and replaced it with "Oriole." Subtle, I know. But despite the bickering, the subterfuge, and the dramatic stealing of secret stencils, the Oriole would ultimately go the way of the ghosts that it claimed to conjure. In the end, a judge ruled in William's favor, granting him sole production rights. It seems the so-called "Father of the Ouija Board" had come out on top, and he was about to go bigger and bolder than ever. In 1919, he informed a Baltimore newspaper that the spirits had come to him with a message.

• 7:33Aaron Mahnke?

  "The Ouija Board told me to prepare for big business," he said. "And on that advice, I called in architects and builders and planned a factory that will give us many times the capacity we have now." And I know what you're thinking: Consulting a Ouija board certainly seems like an iffy way to conduct big business. And William Fold would agree with you, actually. That whole thing about the spirits telling him to build the new factory, yeah, that was just a big, old publicity stunt. Heck, he didn't even buy into all that spiritualism stuff to begin with. Earlier in his career, when a reporter asked him if he believed in Ouija's powers, he said, and I quote, "I should say not. I'm no spiritualist. I'm a Presbyterian." And apparently, when people wrote him letters asking for spiritual advice,

• 8:18Aaron Mahnke?

  he directed them not to the board he manufactured, but to the Bible. But as it turns out, insulting the Ouija Board might not have been a great idea. Because you see, on February 24th of 1927, William Fold was up on a rooftop facilitating the installation of a flagpole when he lost his footing. He toppled backwards, plummeting three stories to his death on the unforgiving ground below. And he might have survived, but while attempting to move him to the hospital, one of his ribs pierced him through the heart. Oh, and what roof did he fall off of, you might ask? Why, none other than his brand-new, state-of-the-art Baltimore Ouija board factory. Of course.

• 9:13Aaron Mahnke?

  Up until 1895, Sarah Griffin seemed to be a typical Connecticut woman. She was a devout parishioner of the Methodist Church, a dedicated community member, and a loyal wife. But then, in her mid-50s, she bought her first Ouija board. And suddenly, Sarah changed. She left the church and turned to occultism. Within a few years, she had become the leader of an entire spiritualist community. And then finally, on May 16th of 1900, Sarah's husband awoke in the night to the sound of his wife moaning in pain. Now, look, I know this sounds like the start of a 1980s satanic panic PSA, but I promise I'm only reporting the facts here, which aren't pretty. Because when Sarah's husband ran to her, she told him the devastating truth.

• 9:59Aaron Mahnke?

  After he had gone to sleep, she had gotten into bed, turned out the light, and swallowed a lethal dose of strychnine. Why? Well, that would be because the spirits told her to. "They came tonight and told me I should not delay," she told her husband, according to the Boston Globe. "This night, they wanted me. I have done it, and will soon be with them. Oh, how glad I am that I have been called. They kept calling and calling, saying, 'Tonight, tonight.'" "They were relentless and said it was decreed that I should leave at once, so I merely obeyed the summons." And tragically, Sarah died that very night. It seems speaking to the spirits had no longer been enough for her. She became determined to join them.

• 10:40Aaron Mahnke?

  And I'm sorry to say, she wouldn't be the last person to lose their life because of a Ouija board. Take the case of May Murdock, a Californian wife and mother. On March 17th of 1923, she stepped out onto her front porch, lifted a gun, and shot her husband to death. At her trial, May told the court that she was acting in self-defense. Her husband, you see, had plans to murder her. How did she know? Well, the Ouija board told her, of course. According to May, she had been messing with the Ouija board one afternoon when she asked, harmlessly enough, what her husband was thinking about. The board's reply? "To hell with you. I'm going to kill you. You are too old." Alarmed, she pressed further, and the board delivered.

• 11:24Aaron Mahnke?

  It said her husband intended to hack her up with an axe, bury her, and cover her body with lime. Deeply freaked out by this, she hid all of the axes on their property. But rather than making her safe, the board's warning merely changed. Now, the Ouija insisted her husband would just have to kill her with a hammer. "So you see," she told the jury, "what other choice did she have but to shoot him?" As you might imagine, the court did not consider "the spirits made me do it" as a legal defense. She was sentenced to a decade in San Quentin. At least, it should have been a decade. She was released on parole in October of 1925, after only two years in prison. Then there's the death of 50-year-old Clotilde Marshand in March of 1930.

• 12:08Aaron Mahnke?

  She was the wife of a renowned sculptor named Henri Marshand. And, uh, given the hammer wounds and the chloroform-soaked paper stuffed down her throat, it was pretty clear that Clotilde did not die of natural causes. The authorities quickly zeroed in on two suspects: 35-year-old Lila Jimmerson and 68-year-old Nancy Bowen. And strap in, because what the police uncovered sounds more like a soap opera than real life. It turns out that a year prior, Nancy's husband had gone out into the backyard to look for ghosts, as one does, and mysteriously died. And so, out of the seemingly goodness of her heart, Nancy's young neighbor Lila invited the widow- to move in with her. The two made an easy pair of roomies.

• 12:51Aaron Mahnke?

  That is, until Lila approached Nancy with an idea. Why not use a Ouija board to contact Nancy's deceased husband? But there was a catch. Nancy, you see, was illiterate, and so Lila graciously offered to translate to the older woman what the board was saying. What a sweetheart, right? Now, as soon as the two started working with the board, Lila informed Nancy that her husband was tragically not resting in peace over in the spirit world. In fact, Ouija had some bad news. The man had been murdered. But hey, how handy, right? The ghost knew exactly who had done it. Her name: Clotilde. And not only did the ghost provide her name and physical description, but conveniently offered up her home address:

• 13:34Aaron Mahnke?

  576 Riley Street in Buffalo, New York. The Ouija board proceeded to demand, via Lila's translations, of course, that Nancy should pay Clotilde a little visit and, uh, kill her. Nancy even started receiving letters from a so-called medium named Mrs. Dooley, who similarly claimed to be in touch with her husband's ghost, also encouraging her to commit the crime. The spirits had clearly spoken. And so on March 6th of 1930, Nancy moseyed on over to Riley Street, and she murdered the sculptor's wife. Oh, and speaking of that sculptor, Henri Marchand, husband of the murdered woman, it turns out he'd been having an affair with one of his models the entire time. And I bet you can guess her name.

• 14:17Aaron Mahnke?

  That's right, Lila Jimmerson, who had orchestrated the entire thing. A similar case arose just three and a half years later in Arizona. There, a 15-year-old girl named Maddie Turley shot her father to death with a shotgun outside the family home. Only later did it come out that Maddie's mother, Dorothea, had manipulated the daughter into committing the crime with a little help from her Ouija board, of course. Dorothea, by the way, was a former beauty queen. And this is neither here nor there, but just fun fact. She was once named the "American Venus" due to her measurements almost exactly matching those of the famous Venus the Milo. Anyway, Dorothea was bored with her husband Ernest, and apparently wanted to marry a hot cowboy instead.

• 15:00Aaron Mahnke?

  Ernest refused to grant her a divorce, so Dorothea resorted to Plan B: elaborate, ghost-fueled murder.

• 15:08Aaron Mahnke?

  As teenage Maddie later recalled, "It was dark in the room and there were only the shadows from a flickering lamp. Mother asked the Ouija board, 'Shall we kill father?' And the pointer moved to 'yes.'" But that's not all. The board also insisted that Maddie had to be the one to do it. Understandably Maddie wasn't too stoked on this plan, but her mother told her that disobeying the Ouija's command would lead to terrible suffering. One thing led to another and, well, you know how this story ends. And speaking of endings, for a Kansas City woman named Nellie Hurd, her ending arrived on April 3rd of 1935 at the hands of her husband Herbert. And look, we're not usually fans of wife murder here, but let's just say that Herbert had his reasons. And by

• 15:52Aaron Mahnke?

  "reasons," I mean, after a Ouija board erroneously told Nellie that Herbert was cheating on her, she tied him to a bed, installed bars on the windows, and spent two weeks torturing him with a dagger, a red hot poker, rifle beatings, and more. All the while, she spent hours mumbling over the board as it revealed more and more details of his alleged affair. Nellie's misery-like torture spree finally came to an end when Herbert managed to get his hands on the gun that she'd left lying within reach, and seeing his chance, he took it. He shot Nellie four times, and then fled barefoot, bloody, and in his pajamas, to wave down the police. It's also worth noting one glaring similarity between all these Ouija board deaths. While

• 16:35Aaron Mahnke?

  domestic violence is usually perpetrated by men, these crimes were all committed by women. Women who, unable to seize the power they wanted independently, weaponized the board in order to grab it, and manipulated the innocent people around them to get what they wanted. Which, in at least one case, was a hot cowboy. Then again, according to our next story, some of the women who wield the Ouija board for nefarious purposes aren't operating from a place of evil at all, but one of twisted, pervading hope. And sometimes, even love.

• 17:25Aaron Mahnke?

  The two sweethearts face one another, flushed and focused. The young woman's gaze is cast upward toward the heavens as the man stares fixedly at her collarbone. Their knees touch flirtatiously beneath a table, but it's their hands that made this Norman Rockwell painting go down in history. Hands that are resting firmly on a planchette. On May 1st of 1920, Rockwell's illustration of a couple using a Ouija board graced the cover of the Saturday Evening Post. They was trendy, perfect for the hot new decade, and it was true, Ouija boards were certainly making headlines in the early months of 1920. But not for the wholesome flirtatious reasons that Rockwell's illustration might suggest.

• 18:08Aaron Mahnke?

  Our tale takes place in the tiny Bay Area town of El Cerrito, California, a little dirt road village with a meager population of 1,500. And on the evening of March 3rd of 1920, 12 of those 1,500 people, 7 adults and 5 children, would be discovered in a state of frothing insanity within a house soon dubbed "The House of Mystery", an insanity said to have been induced by a Ouija board. It all began with a tragedy, as so many of our stories do. Jenny Morrow was the young woman's name, and that's all she'll ever be: young. Because on the day after Christmas in 1919, at only 20 years old, Jenny was hit by a car and killed.

• 18:48Aaron Mahnke?

  As a parent myself, it's horrifying to imagine the sorrow her mother Maria must have experienced. And as if losing her daughter weren't enough, the accident was a hit and run, with the driver still at large. And not only that, but Maria's husband, Jenny's father, had died of heart failure just a few months prior. In short, Maria was living a nightmare, and all that grief, well, it proved to be more than her hearts and mind could bear. With her beloved family gone, Maria had only one place left to turn: that is, the Ouija board. Maria began inviting extended family, friends, and neighbors over to her house every night for sessions with the spirits. But these weren't sentimental chit chats. Oh no, Maria wanted justice.

• 19:33Aaron Mahnke?

  Specifically, she wanted to track down the driver who had killed her daughter. At first, the interactions with the board were practical, reasonable even. They simply asked for the license plate number of the car that had run Jenny down, and low and behold, the board spat one out. Excited, they brought their discovery to the police, who ran the number only to find that there was no car on record with that license plate at all. Maria and her cohort had stumbled, unbeknownst to them, upon a turning point. Here was a chance to call it quits, to realize that perhaps Ouija boards didn't know what the heck they were talking about, and maybe, just maybe, they should pursue healthier avenues for getting closure around Jenny's death. But no, after that, the spook squad only doubled down.

• 20:18Aaron Mahnke?

  Night after night, they met, dusk after dusk, shadowed in low light, they placed their hands upon the planchette and watched as it swept madly over the board. Now, at this point, the group consisted of Maria, Jenny's sister Josephine, and Josephine's husband Charles, along with a couple of Jenny's cousins and some of the family's neighbors from their tight-knit Italian-American community. At least, those were the "living" members of the crew, because the group was 100% convinced that Jenny and her dead father were joining the sessions as well. And not just them. No, to the group's terror, they soon came to believe something far darker had been unleashed by their use of the board: evil spirits, who must be appeased.

• 21:01Aaron Mahnke?

  Which brings us to the fated events of that first week of March in 1920. By this point, they were no longer meeting up simply in the evenings, no, the sessions stretched on for days on end. They had boarded the doors and covered the windows, no one would so much as step away from the Ouija board, except to do the board's bidding. In fact, Jenny's sister Josephine hadn't slept since February 26th, and it was now nearing March 3rd. Speaking of appeasing those evil spirits, you might be wondering exactly what the spirits wanted them to do. Well, the group began to burn money, for one. Meanwhile, 15-year-old Adeline, convinced that her clothes were possessed, stripped naked and burned them. Next, her 12-year-old sister's hair became possessed, so naturally it had to be cut off and burned as well.

• 21:46Aaron Mahnke?

  And you heard that right, a 12-year-old. Because it turns out, all this time, the participating adults had been forcing their young children into the séances, a number of whom were under the age of five. To her credits, one woman, a local lady named Ida Benner, tried to leave, but the rest of the group held her hostage and forced her to continue. Then, the board demanded they fetch Ida's daughter. And when members of this séance society arrived at the Benner house and found it locked, they began to beat down the door with a hammer. This would be the final straw. Ida's husband, Tony, called the authorities. Authorities who, when they saw what was going down inside the Morrow household, realized they were in way over their heads and called in a Catholic priest. The scene inside was wild.

• 22:31Aaron Mahnke?

  Adeline was nearly naked and everyone was dazed and exhausted from lack of food and sleep. In the words of one AP article, they were found, and I quote, "in a state of trance and gibbering about dictates from the unseen." When the police began to arrest the adults in the room, they fought back, desperate to keep their séance going at all costs. Ultimately, seven of them would be charged with insanity. Suffice to say, the tale of the crazed Ouija maniacs of El Cerrito became an instant media sensation all across the country. So much so that the government decided to step in and put a stop to this Ouija madness once and for all. The city of Sacramento announced a special police task force

• 23:13Aaron Mahnke?

  whose job was specifically to break up Ouija board séances. A state senator named Will R. Sharkey produced a bill to ban Ouija boards in California completely, which he called, and I quote, "as bad as a drug habit." Local pastors sternly warned against the board's dangers, and the superintendent of one nearby mental hospital declared the Ouija board as "dangerous and hysteria-producing." But in department stores? Well, Ouija board sales went through the roof.

• 23:56Aaron Mahnke?

  Is it a game, or is it a trap? That seems to have been the question since the Ouija boards first appeared. It's why we're still so fascinated by them and why so many people collect them or use them to this day. And the real-life stories certainly don't help narrow down the answers, do they? Mass insanity, fraud, even murder. The Ouija board has been at the center of so many painful stories. It makes you wonder if they always will be. A few weeks after the El Cerrito arrests, the sensationalist news stories began to dry up, and with them, efforts to ban the boards. Will Sharkey's bill never came to pass, neither did any arrests by Sacramento's Seance Task Force.

• 24:38Aaron Mahnke?

  Meanwhile, the Ouiji maniacs were quietly released from state mental hospitals in mid-April. Their treatment appears to have been being separated from one another and getting some much-needed rest. Grief does strange things to a person, especially when that grief stems from something as senseless as a hit-and-run driver, a random stupid accident without explanation. While Jenny's mother and her extended family and friends might seem extreme, I think we can all relate to their desperate need for answers. And if there was even the slightest chance the spirits might provide those answers, who among us wouldn't take those odds? After all, there's a reason Ouija board sales tend to soar during times of trouble.

• 25:21Aaron Mahnke?

  In 1920, you see, when Jenny Moro died, the United States had just experienced a devastating world war, as well as an influenza pandemic that killed millions. For some, the Ouija board seemed like an impossible blessing, giving them a shot at finding closure, which makes these stories of Ouija death and madness all the more tragic. Instead of the healing the participants sought, they found only more horror. A horror that didn't end in the 1920s, by the way. Oh, no. While the tale of the House of Mystery may have ended there, Ouija mania itself continued to seize the minds and souls of Ouija board users all across the world.

• 26:01Aaron Mahnke?

  In 1979, for example, a riot broke out at a school after a Ouija board session got out of hand. 100 students and teachers formed a mob that tore down a door, kicked walls, and screamed about witches, demons, and spirits. And before you assume that this was at a Catholic school or someplace similarly prone to demonic belief, think again, because the riots took place at the decidedly science-minded Miami Aerospace Academy. And then there were the dozens of students in Columbia whose hysteria became so bad they were hospitalized. The victims, all indeed students at a Catholic school this time, were overcome by fainting spells, anxiety attacks, convulsions, and even temporary blindness, all after playing with a Ouija board.

• 26:46Aaron Mahnke?

  But not just any Ouija board. Some news outlets reported that the students weren't using a physical board at all, but a Ouija board app on their phone. Yes, an app, because that Colombian hysteria, it took place in the year 2023.

• 27:18Aaron Mahnke?

  Thanks for joining me in the séance room today and during every other conjuring we've shared for 300 episodes and counting. It doesn't take a Ouija board to know that I am beyond lucky to spend my life telling you stories, so thanks for that. With that said, we know that we can't trust the planchette when it insists that demons and spirits are all around. But what about when the call is coming from inside the house? AKA, your own brain. I have one last story for you today that asks that very question. Stick around through this brief sponsor break to hear all about it.

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• 30:06Aaron Mahnke?

  At first, her friend's face appeared normal, but the longer the woman stared, the more the features appeared to warp and change. First, her friend's skin blackened, then it became rough and reptilian. Next, both ears elongated to points while the nose protruded to a twisted snout. And lastly, well, lastly came the eyes. For what had once been pretty brown eyes of an ordinary person, stretched and bulged, turning a bright, glowing yellow. Now, I'm not recapping a pulpy horror movie, or even a bad acid trip. The woman who witnessed this terrifying transformation suffers from an extremely rare visual perception disorder called prosopometamorphopsia.

• 30:48Aaron Mahnke?

  It's a mouthful, I know, but luckily for me and my limited pronunciation skills, its effects are more clearly summed up by its more common name. That is, Demon Face Syndrome. Now, in the past century, there have been fewer than 100 reported cases of Demon Face Syndrome. But for those unlucky few who have it, the symptoms are jarring, to say the least. Basically, it impacts the way people register faces. For folks with this disorder, otherwise ordinary visages appear distorted or even monstrous. While it varies from person to person, faces might appear to droop, melt, shrink, or stretch. Eyes, noses, and mouths might appear blurry or vanish entirely. Just imagine you're on a dinner date, and suddenly your partner's mouth is gone,

• 31:32Aaron Mahnke?

  with only smooth skin in its place. Or their eyes pop out, replaced with vacant black holes. Then again, sometimes features don't disappear, but instead multiply. Think a whole bunch of extra eyes popping out of nowhere like a spider. Eyes that might decide, for example, to float loose from the person's face. And speaking of spiders, human faces might also transform into animal faces, or become scaled with tree bark or vegetable skin. None of this is static, mind you. Those with Demon Face Syndrome describe the effect as rearranging constantly like a kaleidoscopic Picasso painting.

• 32:09Aaron Mahnke?

  sufferers see these distortions on just one side of the face while the other side stays perfectly normal. So, basically a disorder that makes everyone look like Two-Face from Batman. And the thing is, scientists still aren't totally sure what causes it. Over the years, cases have been connected to brain damage, stroke, epilepsy, and brain tumors alike. In the latter case, once the brain tumors were removed, the symptoms tended to go away. But for others, it's a lifelong affliction. Oh, and you might be wondering what happens when someone with Demon Face Syndrome looks in a mirror. Well, for some, they see the very same transformation taking place on their own face. It may sound like living in a horror movie, and for some, it is. One patient participating in a recent

• 32:54Aaron Mahnke?

  study told researchers that he disliked going to the store, none too eager to encounter the fellow shoppers who looked, and I quote, "like an army of demons." But on the other hand, for those who have had the disorder their entire lives, it's just sort of normal. For one woman, who's had the disease since childhood, it took her until her teenage years to realize that not everyone saw each other's faces changing into dragons. And if you're hearing this and thinking, "Wait, they don't?" Then you might just be a member of that ultra-rare population. Either that, or you're a teensy bit possessed. In either case, though, one thing I definitely don't recommend is seeking your medical advice from a Ouija board.

• 33:47Aaron Mahnke?

  This episode of Lore was produced by me, Aaron Manke, with writing by Jenna Rose Nethercott, research by Cassandra DeAlba, and music by Chad Lawson. Oh, and a special thanks to John Kozak over at the Salem Witchboard Museum. He's an absolute expert on all things spirit boards and helped out a ton in chasing down these stories. If you're ever in Salem, Massachusetts, pop by his museum, it is genuinely incredible. Just a reminder, I have a brand-new history book coming out on August 4th called Exhumed, which explores the roots of the New England vampire panic through the lens of centuries of folklore, medical advice. ...advancements, pseudoscience and philosophy. It's available for preorder right now. And if you preorder the hardcover, my publisher has a cool webpage set up where you can submit your receipts and get a free gorgeous tote bag.

• 34:30Aaron Mahnke?

  Head over to aronnankie.com/exhumed to lock in your copy today. The link is in the description. Don't like hearing ads on Lore? Well, there's a paid version on Apple Podcasts and Patreon that is 100% ad-free. Subscribers also get weekly mini bonus episodes called Lore Bites, and Patreon members get discounts on Lore merch. Learn more over at lorepodcast.com/support. Follow the show on YouTube Threads, Blue Sky and Instagram. Just search for Lore Podcast, all one word, and then click that follow button. And when you do, say hi. I like it when people say hi. And as always, thanks for listening.

• 35:18Speaker 03

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