Before We Invented Ghosts, We Invented Memory- Mystery Schools, Ancient Shadows, & Academic Echoes

Before ghosts wore names, our brains invented them to survive the dark. We follow that spark from prehistoric caves to secret initiation temples and straight into Michigan’s lodges and universities, asking a stubborn question: are we learning, or simply remembering? I share how sensory deprivation, echo, and flicker forged “shadow people” as a neurological coping tool, then map those same levers onto ancient mystery schools across Egypt, Greece, Persia, and beyond—places that trained initiates to leave the body, decode symbols, and face death without terror.

The story pivots to Michigan’s hidden landscape: the House of David’s mirror meditations and sealed tunnels, artists’ ritual circles on the lakeshore, and the world’s largest Masonic temple in Detroit, a coded giant with secret theaters, 33-step stairs, and rooms tuned to make echoes feel like whispers. These spaces aren’t just spooky; they are instruments designed to awaken the remembered mind through geometry, silence, and controlled disorientation.

We close on campuses that look suspiciously like modern initiations. From Ann Arbor’s secret societies and Gothic libraries to MSU’s lost telepathy barn and Hillsdale’s esoteric symbols, the state’s universities use star alignments, tunnels, and reflection rooms to shape thought beyond lectures. The throughline is clear: circles for memory, triangles for mind-body-soul, libraries as externalized brain, and echo chambers that force self-confrontation. If the same toolkit repeats from caves to quads, maybe consciousness isn’t discovered—it’s triggered. Press play, then tell us: are the hauntings out there, or inside us? If this journey lit up your curiosity, follow the show, share it with a friend, and drop a review so more seekers can find us.

Chapters

• 0:00 The First Fear: Mind As Ghost
• 3:50 Shadow People And Survival Hallucinations
• 7:30 Caves, Echoes, And Invented Spirits
• 10:40 Birth Of Ancient Mystery Schools
• 15:20 Techniques Of Initiation And Extremes
• 20:10 Michigan’s Modern Mystery Echoes
• 26:30 Detroit Masonic Temple’s Hidden Design

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:00

Before we feared the dark, we feared ourselves. You'd think cavemen feared wolves, fire, volcanoes, or lightning? No. The first real thing early humans feared was the human mind. Picture this: a cave, fire crackling just enough to hold back the dark. No stories exist yet. No spirits, no demons, no gods. Just silence and the sound of your own heartbeat. Then suddenly the human brain evolves. We become aware, aware of time, aware of death, aware that one day we will not exist. That awareness, that was the first haunting. Because once we can imagine death, we started to see it. In shadows and dreams and caves, where the echoes sounded like whispers, where flickering light looked like something moving past the fire. The first ghosts were not spirits, they were our thoughts. Memories, hallucinations, fever dreams, nightmares trying to tell us, you are alive, which means you will die. So ask yourself, were ghosts real? Or did our minds invent them? Because they needed something to blame for thoughts too dark to be human. This is Strange Strange Beyond Insane, and this is your host, Melissa. Welcome to the first ever fear. The first hallucination. Not outside, but inside. Fever, starvation, isolation, darkness, echoing caves, these were not just dangers. These were chemical experiments conducted by nature on the human mind. The brain, untrained and newly conscious, was trying to understand death, memory, sound. So when it hallucinated, it believed what it saw. No question, no doubt, because the human brain was not lying, it was evolving. Imagine sitting at the mouth of a cave, exhausted, hungry, maybe dying. You begin to see figures, not monsters, not animals, human-shaped shadows. Watching, listening, reflecting. They would move only when you blinked. They would disappear only when you looked directly at them. These were the first shadow people, not paranormal, but neuroparanormal, created by the brain as it learned the difference between imagination and reality. And guess what? Modern neuroscientists did the same experiment using isolation, sensory deprivation, and sleep loss, and they did confirm it. Shadow people are real, not ghosts but mirrors. The brain conjures a second human in your vision when it seems you're too alone to survive a survival hallucination. Caves have perfect acoustics for hallucinations, and the caves do remember. Your whisper comes back as a word you didn't say. Your footsteps echo behind you like someone is following. Your breath bounces off stone and returns sounding wrong. Archaeologists say cave walls acted like natural voice recorders. The echoes were the first spirits, not because the dead were speaking, but because the living were finally listening. Before humans saw ghosts, we invented them. Not out there, in here, in our own minds. Because the moment we understood death, the brain created something to stand right beside it. We've talked about the mind awakening in caves. Now let's jump in the time when humanity tried to control that awakening. That's when mystery schools were born. Not regular schools, not religion, not witchcraft. These were secret initiation centers, hidden in deserts, caves, and underground temples, where chosen students were taught how to leave the body without dying, how to trigger visions intentionally, sleep paralysis, sensory deprivation, fasting, and sound vibrations, how to decode dreams, symbols, geometric patterns, numbers, and the human soul, and most of all, how to face death without fear. So what were these ancient mystery schools? Well, they existed in Egypt, Greece, Babylon, Persia, India, and even prehistoric Britain. But they were not public, they were hidden. Only the initiated could enter. These are just a few examples of what some famous historians admitted actually did exist. So we have Ella Shaniayan Mysteries that was in ancient Greece. Um, we have Temple of Isis in Egypt, Orphic Mysteries in Greece, and the purpose of these schools were um life, death, and rebirth, contacting the underworld, soul travel, out-of-body experiences. Then we have using sound and vibration to alter consciousness. Um, the metheric mysteries in Rome, Persia was used for cave initiations and confronting darkness. The Pythagorean, Pythagorean school in Italy was used for math as a language of reality and spirit. Okay, and then we have the druids and long barrow tunnels. That's prehistoric UK. Um, dream temples and ancestor contact were that was the purpose for that. So the mystery school belief is they believed humans had two minds. The learned mind, what society teaches you, and the remembered mind, what your soul already knows. Their goal, wake up the remembered mind. The initiation rituals, what they actually did, was they used techniques that today would be considered psychological torture or spiritual awakening. So fasting and dehydration causes vivid hallucinations and dream clarity, isolation and complete darkness, sometimes three to seven days underground, lamb walking creates disorientation, induces vision travel, and then near death simulation. Yes, some experience controlled clinical death, which is that's pretty um extreme, I would say. They believed that you cannot study truth in a book, you must meet it in the dark. These were not schools, they didn't teach reading, writing, or history. They taught you how to leave your body and come back changed. Doors with no handles, temples with no windows, no teachers, only initiators. Because once you entered a mystery school, the real test didn't come from them, it came from your own mind. No textbooks, no choir, just darkness, your heartbeat, an empty room where the walls eventually began to whisper. Some came out enlightened, while others came out silent. And some, well, they never came out at all. So the Uzulanian mysteries used a psycho-active drink to stimulate death and rebirth. The Mithraic through Mithraic, I think, rituals and caves, um, they initiate their I was about to say victims, but I guess they're scholars, blindfolded and buried alive. The Egyptian belief was that the soul travels through tunnels beneath the pyramids and they actually built them. The mystery schools were the first human universities, or were they the first cults? And I mean, a big question is why are some archaeologists believed that they were really ancient psychological laboratories? So I think another question in this whole summary of these mystery schools should be was this a social experiment too? I mean, I'm always questioning that. Um, you know, I think a lot of this is extreme. I think I'm I'm I mean, I there's not a doubt in my mind that this did not happen. Um, but we're gonna talk about more of like the modern mystery schools. You know, in mystery schools were where fear became a religion, and I'm guessing some of these Catholic schools, um, these old Catholic schools probably do some of this fear-mongering too. I wouldn't doubt it because the parents are paying big bucks and they're they're private schools, right? They can probably get away with a lot more. So, Michigan actually has its own versions of mystery schools, secret lodges, societies, you know, like hidden societies, initiation temples, spiritualist colonies, even underground Masonic chambers hidden in plain sight. Not ancient Egypt level, but hauntingly similar in purpose, and that's for hidden knowledge, spiritual training, symbolism, death and rebirth rituals, astral projection, channeling, soul communication, mysticism, and secret mass initiations. Michigan's history is crowded with all of these. So we are gonna dive into it. Um, so we do have in Grand Rapids we have the temples and inner chambers, Battle Creek and Alleghen, Benton Harbor, um, also has the House of David Colony, Grand Rapids, Fountain Street Church, Free Thinkers Society, Benton Harbor is the Ascensionist Colony, Royal Oak, Ann Arbor, Traverse City. This is the Rosicrucian Order, also known as the Um AMORC, Detroit's Masonic Temple, the world's largest. Now, this one took me by surprise. So here in Troy, Michigan, it's a weirdly quiet location, mysterious Western Theosophical Society meetings, which is very interesting because that's like right up the road. Um, in Holland and Ann Arbor, there is a secret spiritualist church or churches, um, Sagatok, Michigan, artists and mystic ritual, theater, and psychic awakening circles. Interesting. So the Eloise Asylum in Westland, which we talk about that many times on this um show. This is not a school, um, but it was a psychic ward, and it was used for experimental study rooms. And my favorite, Michigan's most mind-bending mystery school is the Detroit Masonic Temple, the largest and most symbolic in the world. And yes, I have delivered pizza um quite a few times to this place. It is definitely fucking haunted. Anyone that's been in there will tell you that. So this place is not just a building, it's literally a coded structure. There is 1,000 plus rooms, there is three hidden theaters, doors that go absolutely nowhere, secret staircases with 33 steps, number 33. Think for yourself what that means, and that is also, those stairs are also known as the Masonic Degrees of Enlightenment. It's an astrological layout built to align with the Orion's belt, room designed purely to create echo-based hallucinations, a chamber with no doors, only found through crawling. Members call it the sleeping room. It was allegedly used for guided hallucination, dream initiation, and rebirth challenges. I mean, you guys being from, you know, Detroit, Michigan, obviously north of the Metro Detroit, but in Michigan, Detroit is one of the most haunted, most historical places in the world. I don't care what anyone says, there's I mean, look it up for yourself. And I know I have a lot of new listeners on here from um other countries like Germany, uh Tokyo, um, Russia, I know, and there's there's quite a few more on there, but um, you know, I obviously if you guys are listening to my podcast, even if you um basically tune it into your own language, so you obviously know what I'm saying, or you you know you want to keep listening. But if you ever come here to visit Michigan, you obviously have to go into the city and into Detroit. Because if you're interested in history, paranormal hauntings, I mean, anything weird, all of the above, you have to visit Detroit. Very cool, very, very cool area. Alright, so the strangest Michigan mystery school of all is the House of David, um, located in Benton Harbor, Michigan. So this was founded in 1903 and it's still present. Um, not just a cult, more like a spiritual commune training school. Well, that's what they believed. Um, so this, and then their beliefs are the human body is not real, it's a projection. Sex and aging are illusions, celibacy preserves the original soul, trains members in mirror meditation to exit the body, believe that the original human Adam still walks among us in another dimension in Michigan, which I would think that if the original Adam did exist or whatever, I don't think he'd be in Michigan. But, anyways, um, members wore long hair and beards because they thought hair enhanced spiritual antenna ability um or quote received messages from beyond. They held awakening circles in underground tunnels. Some were sealed and never opened again. Wow. Uh very bizarre, but hey, whatever people believe, right? So Michigan isn't just ghosts in abandoned hospitals. We had real mystery schools, places where people believed they could leave their body, reset the soul, and even skip death entirely. And the strangest part, some of them are still open. You've heard of Eloise, you've heard of haunted asylums, but you haven't heard about the places people went willingly, not to be cured, but to be changed. Places with no windows, places designed with 33 doors, but only one real entrance. Places where you weren't allowed to speak for three days to let the mind wake up first. Places in Michigan. Masonic temples that whispered when empty. Underground chambers in Benton Harbor, where they practiced soul separation, an abandoned school near Elijan, where they say the walls still hum. Because they were built to match human brainwave frequencies. So now I want to talk about universities in Michigan. Um, being a barber, having a lot of younger men clients, um, that I've been cutting their hair for a couple of years now, and now that they're in college, um, they go to colleges all around, right? So I always ask them, like, do you feel strange? Do you ever feel anything weird, paranormal, things you can't explain, yada yada, yada? I've gotten mixed responses. So because Michigan's oldest universities aren't just educational, they're loaded with haunting origins, secret societies, hidden laboratories, tomb-like libraries, Masonic influence, and occult architectural symbolism. Michigan universities didn't just teach, they initiated. Some were practically modern mystery schools. So the University of Michigan was built in 1817, founded by Freemasons and Illuminous scholars, including Secret Societies, Michigama, the Order of I think Angel, rumored underground tunnels, connecting libraries, silence rooms, mimicking ancient reflection chambers. So Michigan State University was um built in 1855. Early agricultural college used barns for telepathy experiments, lucid dream trials, and hypnosis study in the 1890s. Still rumors of psychic research in Wells Hall. So the Hillsdale College, and this is in 1844. Remind you, we've been to Hillsdale a few times, and my brother has a round in Hillsdale, Michigan, and he says that every time he drives through there, he thinks of his creepy fucking sister and all of her paranormal shit because he said that he could just feel it. And he is not a paranormal, scary dude. Like this shit scares the hell out of him. But he's like, even if you're not into that, you can like literally feel it as you're just driving through, right? So Hillsdale College, um, built in 1844, founded in ancient Greek mystery philosophy, uh, school seal features occult symbols, secret underground lodge, rumored for truth society. Interesting. So Albion College, uh, this was built in 1835, known for the observatory ritual, a silent initiation in their 1877 observatory, claiming to see time ghost stories linked to students who never came back down. All right, so Kalamazoo College, 1833, library built using golden ratio, matched to Orion's belt on winter solace. Quiet rooms used like monk-like reflection chambers. Adrian College in 1859, founded by spiritualists, held real science seances on campus, believed education and spirit communication could mix. Archive still holds original spirit transcripts. Oh, I gotta fucking go there and see this. It just excites me. And I always love talking about colleges because they're so creepy and haunted and just so much, so, so much history. All right, so Wayne State, 1868, founded as Detroit Medical College, ran human consciousness studies, possible near-death experiments, rumored body speaks after death recordings in basement morgue. Creepy. So the University of Michigan, the real mystery school, founded in 1817 by actual Freemasons and influenced scholars. So at Michigan, U of M, hidden societies still exist today. And that's always my question to these young clients. I'm like, come on, you can tell me. Do you guys have like hidden societies initiation? They all tell me the same shit. They're like, no, you can't because you'll get in trouble for hazing, but I think they're just meant, like they're trained to say that. So no one's secret societies. Adara, Vulcans, Order of I think Engel, if I'm saying all this right, all share roots with ancient fraternities and mystic symbolism. Their initiation rooms were kept secret even from university officials. Underground tunnels connect the Law, Quadrangle, Old Libraries, and the West Hall. Some tunnels built using Masonic geometric symbols. Michigan Law Library. The architect admitted it was designed to replicate Gothic cathedral energy to activate higher thought. And then the Hillsdale College. This is Michigan's true hidden mystery school. This one is widely overlooked. Founded on ancient Greek academic mis uh mis I'm sorry, Greek academic mystery. Their sealed features, seven point star symbol, and cryptic motto. Vert let's see, vertas, tentamine, got it. Strength rejoices and challenge. Ruins on campus, rumored to be remains of an underground symbolic lodge. Secret group called the Tower Society designed around Masonic rituals. So this school was the only college not controlled by church or government, meaning it had full freedom to explore spiritual education. You can only imagine what went on there. So Michigan State's Forgotten Mind experiments. This lasted from 1895 to 1930. Not spooky buildings, but spooky psychology. Michigan State ran telepathy experiments in Barn E. Lucid Death Simulation. Student volunteers slept immobilized in pitch dark for 72 hours. Attempted to record dreams as images using galvanic skin motion sensors, electrical film plates. The barn collapsed in 1909 and the records somehow disappeared. How convenient. So again, Michigan is full of haunted hospitals, ghost towns, and abandoned asylums. But no one talks about the places where the hauntings weren't accidents. They were designed. The universities, buildings shaped using sacred geometry, libraries aligned to star constellations, rooms built to echo just enough to make you hear things. Where silence wasn't punishment, it was training. These were not just schools, they were modern mystery temples. And initiation didn't require belief, it required transformation. What if humans are not discovering new knowledge at all, but we're just remembering what we already knew? Every culture we talked about, cave dwellers seeing shadow figures before any religion existed, mystery schools teaching silence, symbols, geometry, dreams, and death rituals. Freemasons designing buildings aligned with stars, echo chambers, and sacred math. Michigan universities using architecture, isolation rooms, and rituals to awaken the mind. And they all believed in the same thing. And that is knowledge is not learned, it is remembered. That's why ancient temples, mystery schools, and even modern universities use circles, time and memory. Triangles are mind, body, and soul. Libraries are the external brain. Echo chambers are to force self-confrontation. Because they weren't trying to teach anything, they were just trying to reactivate something already inside of us. Something old, something forgotten, something waiting. What if deja vu isn't the feeling that you've been there before? But what if it's the feeling that you've been here forever? What if caves, temples, mystery schools, and even Michigan universities weren't built to give us knowledge, but to trigger knowledge? What if consciousness did not evolve? What if it was just remembered? From caves to temples, from mystery schools to universities, humans haven't been chasing knowledge. We've been chasing memory, and sometimes memory chases us back. Which leads to the real question: are we learning or are we remembering? Thank you guys for listening. And like always, if you would like to email me, my email is ghostsisters2124 at gmail. Again, that is ghost sisters2124 at gmail. I am pretty much on all social media platforms. If you look up Strange Duranged Beyond Insane, it will pop up and you can listen to this podcast on any podcast platform you get your podcast from. Um, some of the platforms that I know that I am on include Spotify, Amazon Music, iHeart, uh, let's see, Apple, Good Pods, I believe, podcasters, um, basically any anywhere that you listen. Also, if you message, if you open up the Buzz Sprout site and you look for my podcasts, you can directly text message me. Again, I love the listeners to engage. Um, a lot of times I don't think people want to engage. They just like to listen, and that's okay too. But if you ever want to engage, you know how to get a hold of me. And if you just want to send me something to talk about and be an unknown listener, we can do that too. That's okay. Um, but again, thank you for listening. And tune and four some more.