What’s haunting Carrie Poppy? Is it ghosts or something worse? In this talk, the investigative journalist narrates her encounter with a spooky feeling you’ll want to warn your friends about and explains why we need science to deal with paranormal activity.

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Watch

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Glossary

• dilapidated – (of a building or object) in a state of disrepair or ruin as a result of age or neglect
• convince – cause (someone) to believe firmly in the truth of something
• sage
• dread – great fear or apprehension
• gimmick – a trick or device intended to attract attention, publicity, or trade
• awe-inspiring – arousing awe through being impressive or formidable

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Think about it

Answer the questions below. For answers pause at times indicated in brackets.

• What did Carrie experience at the guesthouse? What did her friend tell her to do? (2:10)
• Where did she turn for help? What kind of ghost hunters did she find? (3:55)
• What advice did she hear? Was it a useful piece of advice? (5:00)
• What does Carrie do? What are the results of her investigations? (6:26)
• What is the difference between inner truth and outer truth? (8:29)
• What does the IIG do? (10:17)
• What kind of attitude does Carrie promote?

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Practice makes perfect

Fill in the blank spaces with the verbs in brackets used in correct forms and tenses.

I ________ (be) 25 at the time, and I ________ (live) in a tiny house behind someone else’s house in Los Angeles. It was this guest house, it ________ (be) dilapidated, not taken care of for a long time. And one night, I ________ (sit) there and I ________ (get) this really spooky feeling, kind of the feeling like you ________ (be) watched. But no one was there except my two dogs, and they were just chewing their feet. And I ________ (look) around. No one was there. And I ________ (think), OK, it’s just my imagination. But the feeling just ________ (keep) getting worse, and I ________ (start) to feel this pressure in my chest, sort of like the feeling when you get bad news. But it started to sink lower and lower and almost hurt.

And over the course of that week, this feeling ________ (get) worse and worse, and I started to become convinced that something was there in my little guest house, haunting me.

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Fill in the blank spaces with the words in bold.

testable    –    out    –    enough    –    had    –    jiggle    –    respected       –    eternally

Maybe I’m just ________ optimistic, but I hope I never lose this hope, and I invite you to take this same attitude when people share their outer beliefs with you. When talking about ________ claims, respect them ________ to ask these good questions. Challenge and see how you can examine them together, because there’s this idea that you can’t respect a belief and still challenge it, but that’s not true. When we ________ the lock, when we test the claim, we’re saying, OK, I respect you, I’m listening to what you’re saying, I’m going to test it ________with you. We’ve all had that experience where you’re telling someone something, and they’re like, “Oh, that’s really interesting, yeah,” you know you’re being ________ . But when someone says, “Really? Huh. Sounds a little sketchy to me, but I’m listening,” you at least know you’re being engaged and ________ . And that’s the kind of attitude we should have with these claims. That’s showing someone that you care what they’re saying. That’s respect.

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