Ghost Stories part 2 - Lunch Time with Demons

Season Two (Ep 42) Welcome to Sci-Fi November on Lunchtime with Demons! Bella and Ryan start the month with artificial intelligence, and true to form, they aren't here to tell you if it's good or evil. Bella, by her own admission not a tech expert, walks through two months of research. She starts with the history: Alan Turing's codebreaking and his "imitation game," the 1956 Dartmouth workshop that made AI a field of study, the ELIZA chatbot that mimicked a therapist, and the chess computer that beat a world champion. She then explains the difference between traditional AI, language models and generative AI, and points out how long AI has been quietly running underneath everyday life, from social media algorithms to spam filters to Google Maps. From there the hosts get into the environmental debate. They look at how much electricity data centers use and who ends up paying for it, local communities feeling the strain, talk of restarting Three Mile Island, and the push for better cooling methods and cleaner power. Next comes the hot-button topic of AI art. Bella shares arguments from AI art's supporters and reveals that a few cards in her own out-of-print tarot deck used an AI glitch effect. She also takes on the big concerns, including training on copyrighted work without consent, competition with human artists, and the U.S. Copyright Office's 2025 guidance on human authorship. Ryan predicts a coming boom in demand for hands-on, human-made work. The hosts then turn to AI and therapy, covering the ELIZA effect, flattery, emotional dependency, and whether comfort from something that can't be felt is still real comfort. They close with Bella's reflection on consciousness: why do we assume it needs a body made of flesh, and could AI be a mirror for understanding our own minds? There was too much to fit in one episode, so this is Part 1. Next time: AI and spirituality, and the billionaires bankrolling it all. A.Bella's LinkTree Ryan's LinkTree

Season Two (Ep 42) For Samhain this is the second part of ghost stories with a little Q&A from tiktok at the end

Season Two (Ep 41) For Samhain, Bella and Ryan swap true spooky stories, streamed live on Bella's TikTok as well. Before starting, Bella explains how she sees ghosts. She doesn't think spirits are trapped or stuck in purgatory. She thinks they're residual energy, or echoes of a person who died on one timeline while still living on another. Her first story is from her grandmother's Victorian house on Long Island, where a whole family had once died. As a small child she was close friends with a pale girl she named Anastasia, who had a strange blue mark on her forehead. Bella later learned that one of the girls who died there had a gunshot wound to the head. A kind, fatherly spirit she called "Bubble" also visited her there. Ryan's story is about a recent morning at the metaphysical shop where he works. Coworkers were taking things off the walls, and the store suddenly felt dark, heavy and grumpy. Ryan realized a resident ghost was upset that its things were being moved. Once he explained what was happening and promised to warn them next time, the mood lifted right away. The next story Bella's stories from the upstate New York house that used to be a mortuary and a stop on the Underground Railroad. A ghost there copied her sister's face, and while their mom was away for a week, the girls got nonstop calls from "000000." In the scariest moment, something ran up and down a locked servants' staircase while they hid in the bathroom. That was when Bella stood in the hallway, still naked, yelled "STOP RUNNING," and decided she was done being afraid. The family left the house after they came home to every window open, the gas on and all five fireplaces lit. Bella also tells two more stories. In one, at her mom's old Mississippi house, an angry spirit choked her during sleep paralysis until Lucifer pulled it off her. In the other, a job clearing a house that seemed to have a poltergeist turned out to involve a powerful land spirit. It scratched her face until she humbled herself and made offerings. The episode ends with an invitation to enjoy the season. Abella's LinkTree Ryan's LinkTree

Season Two (Ep 38) Pre-Samhain conversation about stepping into the season with intention instead of waiting for October 31st. Bella opens with a preview of the upcoming AI episode, which may become two and could kick off a "Science November" theme. She then shares her reading list and a few poetry picks. Her broader point is that practitioners should read beyond occult books, since science, ecology, and psychology can deepen spiritual practice. Ryan agrees, saying science and the occult aren't enemies but are working toward the same answers from different angles. Bella also urges listeners to skim (not buy) Clay Travis's pro-Trump book to understand a worldview they don't share. Ryan adds that the depth of belief behind it feels cult-like. The conversation turns to fall as a season of endings. Bella points to other autumn new years, including Rosh Hashanah, Mesopotamian calendars, and Diwali. Together they reframe the "thinning veil": the boundary between worlds is always thin, and what changes in fall is us, as we slow down, turn inward, and calm our nervous systems. They suggest ways to mark the lead-up to Samhain: journaling, readings, talking to ancestors or spirits in cemeteries, walks in nature, and small weekend "Sabbaths." Ryan uses shedding antlers as an image for letting old selves go, and describes setting growth commitments at Samhain, a modern practice inspired by the Celtic geis. Bella names her theme for the year as sovereignty and challenges listeners to make presence and self-awareness their New Year's resolution. The Castle: Adventures in a World of Unraveling Men - Jon Ronson Bogland: The Secret World That Defies Death and Protects Life -  Merritt R. Turetsky  I Told You So!: Scientists Who Were Ridiculed, Exiled, and Imprisoned for Being Right - Matt Kaplan  Take Me to Your Leader: Perspectives on Your First Alien Encounter - Neil deGrasse Tyson [insert] boy - Danez Smith The Universe in Verse: 15 Portals to Wonder through Science & Poetry - Maria Popova Wild Embers: Poems of rebellion, fire and beauty by Nikita Gill Abella's Link Tree Ryan's Link Tree

Season Two (Ep 38)  Ready or Not Spoiler(2019) 44:01 - 51:00   This episode of Lunchtime with Demons opens with Bella explaining that the planned AI episode is being pushed back for more research, then moves into what she calls "activation," her preferred term over "triggered." She argues that people get activated by things they don't understand or that touch old wounds, and that the work is to observe that reaction before acting on it. She gives examples: a stranger noticing her C-section scar, Christians telling her on livestreams that she'll burn in hell, and a former occultist telling her flatly that she's wrong. In each case she chose not to match the other person's activation, which she frames as honoring her own deconstruction. Ryan adds that "activation" implies a choice, where "trigger" implies a set direction. Bella also warns newer practitioners about the early "teeth out" phase after leaving a religion. She says people who stay defensive and righteous risk building a rigid occult doctrine that looks a lot like what they left. She contrasts that with the Infernal Divine, who she says wants practitioners to choose the harder path of evolution and sovereignty mid-activation. She also notes the differences between traditionalist, revisionist, and revivalist approaches, so people can disagree without disrespect. The second half turns to parables. Ryan shares "teach a man to fish" as the core of his approach, and they discuss the difference between knowledge and embodiment, along with the idea of "I am" as an expression of divine sovereignty. Bella connects that sovereignty to the shift from polytheism to monotheism and urges listeners to stay comfortable in gray areas. She then gives a spoiler-flagged reading of the film Ready or Not. Ryan reflects on his own move from absorbing knowledge to embodying his practice, and on how it grounded him more deeply in physical life. Bella closes by marking the one-year anniversary of her surgery and the end of her "year of reciprocity." She describes the latest phase of her priestess binding with Lucifer and her move into a "year of sovereignty," and invites listeners to choose a guiding theme for their own year. She signs off with a reminder to be kind and not act from activated places. Cover art created by Casey at BellTarot.com  

Season Two (Ep 38) Bella opens with a quick plea for listeners to get their flu shots, then introduces omnism, the view that every religion holds some piece of  common truths and valid insight and none has a monopoly on it. She uses that as a frame for a bigger topic: a viral Gaia video in which Elizabeth April describes being an extraterrestrial temporarily living in a human body and discusses conflict within the "Galactic Federation." Bella says she believes April but thinks she's sharing these ideas without the foundation listeners need. She then lays out her own cosmology: time is non-linear and shaped like a funnel or cone, with planetary deities as universal energies; reincarnated lives happen simultaneously; dimensions interact through a "mirrored" universe; and some divine beings, including Lucifer, have physical forms. She traces all of this to her encounter in Los Angeles with "Galaxy Lady," a client she describes as a being from another universe, when a portal reportedly opened and knocked out power on the street, and three "watcher" beings spoke to Lucifer through her. She says that moment upended her practice and is why she struggles to call her deities "demons." The second half focuses on how to hold information like this responsibly. Bella pushes back on framing the Federation as having a "dark side," arguing that its disagreements are about how progression and survival should unfold, not good versus evil, and that someone visiting it can't know when in time they've landed. She stresses that these experiences should be applied to living better as a human rather than longing to escape to a higher existence, and describes peace and growth as coming through dissolving ego. She repeatedly frames everything as her unverified personal gnosis (UPG), subject to change, and urges listeners to observe without necessarily absorbing, to use adult discernment, and to stay grounded and collective-minded. She mentions losing a friend to psychosis and suicide as the reason she's been cautious. Ryan adds that the trouble usually comes from what people do with gnosis, holding it too tightly instead of letting it move through them, and the two close by agreeing that dualism holds back growth and that everyone holds a piece of a larger puzzle. Next week's episode will cover AI and spirituality.  

Season Two (Ep 36) A cardinal lands outside Bella's window, and she takes it as a hello from Satan — a fitting omen to open the finale of the Leviathan series. From there, Bella and Ryan lay out a sea-serpent field guide to the monsters braided into Leviathan's imagery of Tiamat, Norse Jörmungandr, the Vedic Vritra, Japan's Ryūjin, and more  tracing the strange cross-cultural pattern of storm gods forever battling serpents of the sea, and asking why so many of these creatures get cast as female or villainous. Ryan's read of Melville's Moby Dick as a leviathan of the unconquerable subconscious, while Bella shares local cryptid encounters from the Hudson Valley to a Vermont lake-monster road trip. The second half turns to practice: Bella makes the case that ocean conservation  beach cleanups, leaving shells and driftwood for the ecosystem, cutting waste that fouls his waters is among the truest offerings to Leviathan, and walks through the spare altar and unusual gifts he accepts, from Hudson River finds to a falling-apart tarot deck he claimed as his own. She closes on his patience and loyalty, and the unusually welcoming community that gathers around him. Ave Leviathan. Cover art created by Casey at BellTarot.com  

Season Two (Ep 36 Cont.) This the continuation of episode 36 for the final 16 mins of the episode

Season Two (Ep 36) This second episode in the Leviathan series shifts from lore to Bella's personal practice of what it's actually like to work with him. She describes his energy as heavy and dense, like sitting at the bottom of the ocean, and says that's why many people only engage with him in small doses. Before reaching out to him (unless he's already reaching out to you), she recommends knowing how you handle stress, shadow work, and the subconscious, since he tends to expose exactly what you're avoiding. She lists signs he's reaching out  sudden ocean or serpent content, a pull toward the coast, irritability, and especially his sigil or name showing up everywhere, since she says he's the most direct of the entities she works with about identifying himself. She also touches on his associations (Neptune's slow, wide-reaching, consistent energy; a comparison to low and high tide for how he exposes and then eases off), his willingness to present as male or female, and general advice to approach any entity with curiosity rather than assumptions. The bulk of the episode is a candid, emotional account of her own six-month upheaval when Leviathan entered her practice: he exposed her unaddressed depression, people-pleasing, self-sabotage, and unhealthy dynamics with Lucifer, at one point leading her to pack up her altar entirely before apologizing and unpacking it the next day. She frames this as him teaching her self-regulation and accountability in ways other entities in her practice hadn't, and describes a resulting sense of humility and unconditional love among Leviathan practitioners generally. She closes with practical notes: he's a minimalist who dislikes clutter and prefers intentional, simple offerings (a shell, a sigil coaster, things returned to nature) over lots of items, and cares more about how you engage with him than what you give him. Ryan then shares his own relationship with Leviathan as a calm, near-wordless companion during freediving, and Bella previews episode three, which will cover serpent and sea-god folklore and Leviathan's connection to Neptune. Abella's LinkTree Ryan's LinkTree

Season Two (Ep 35) In this first episode of a three-part series on Leviathan, Bella and Ryan trace the entity's history through texts. Bella explains that Leviathan predates Judaism and Christianity, and links him to the Ugaritic sea and chaos serpents Lotan and Yam from the Baal cycle. She follows him through the Hebrew Bible (Job, Psalms and Isaiah 27), where he is a monster of chaos that only God can defeat and is never called a demon. She also covers the apocryphal and Midrashic material: Behemoth as his land-dwelling counterpart in 1 Enoch, the Apocalypse of Abraham's shift toward a cosmic god of the abyss, and stories of male and female Leviathans. She notes that Revelation never names him. In the Middle Ages he becomes the "mouth of Hell," and Binsfeld later assigns him to Envy. Weyer's hierarchies place him among the infernal ranks, and Collin de Plancy names him Grand Admiral of Hell. The second half looks at his modern occult identity. Bella explains that his sigil is really the alchemical symbol for sulfur, which became "Leviathan's Cross" only after Anton LaVey used it in the 1960s. She also covers his broader role in the Qliphoth as a current running through the whole initiation, and the idea that the Abyss and the Void are separate entities that can be worked with independently. Throughout, she says that everything discussed is human interpretation rather than direct knowledge of him, and that he "is not for everyone," though the abyss touches everyone's life. She sums up the plan for the series: this episode is the textual foundation, the next covers working with him personally, and the third covers UPG (unverified personal gnosis).  Abella's LinkTree Ryan's LinkTree