Patti Negri is a witch who lives in a house buried deep in the Hollywood Hills. Here Be Monsters producer Jeff Emtman and performance artist Lenae Day went to visit her one day in October 2015, audio recorder in-hand, in an attempt to better understand the mechanisms behind her magic.

One of Patti's tools is astral travel (or astral projection), a form of controlled out of body experience where the travelers eschew their flesh and bone bodies for ones made of souls, or energy, or something else entirely. In this state, travelers may move freely through time and space, see things previously hidden, visit alternate realities, or revisit past traumas, all while leaving their physical bodies safely at home. This is sometimes also called "remote viewing".

From the 1970's through the 1990's, The US military researched remote viewing through Project Stargate, in which they attempted to gather intelligence on the Soviets and others via the employment of skilled remote viewers. In 1995, the government disbanded Project Stargate for being "too vague and ambiguous, making it difficult, if not impossible, for the technique to yield information of sufficient quality andaccuracy of information for actionable intelligence." During roughly the same time period, the Soviets also researched the paranormal.

In this episode, Patti facilitates an astral projection session that unwittingly brings Lenae to one of her earliest moments of trauma. And for that reason, listeners should note that this episode contains a brief, albeit vivid, description of violence.

Patti Negri is a the senior vice president of the American Federation of Certified Psychics and Mediums, the co-host of the Cosmic Truth podcast, an actress, and a regular guest on reality television shows, including Bank of Hollywood, Mansion Hunters, and Ghostly Lovers.

A special thank you to HBM listener Cynthia, for connecting us to Patti.

Lenae Day helped record this episode. She is a performance artist living in Los Angeles. She's also the co-creator of KLAM Radio, a new podcast in the form of a public radio station broadcasting out of a fictional desert casino town.

Music: The Black Spot, Lucky Dragons

Patti Negri appears on Ghostly Lovers, a Travel Channel documentary on spectrophilia.

Patti Negri appears on Mansion Hunters, invoking the spirits present in the Black Dahlia Mansion. Good stuff starts around 6:00.

What's a life worth? About $25, before shipping. At least, that's the case if you want a high-quality inbred lab mouse, like the C57BL/6J (in the biz, they just call them "black mice").

In this episode of Here Be Monsters, Jeff Emtman joins "The Scientist," an unnamed cancer researcher, for an after-hours trip to his lab, where they visit the hundreds of lab mice that he tends to. The Scientist's job is to inject his mice with cancer cells, then attempt to cure them using experimental treatments. After the cancers become too large, he kills the mice.

The Scientist says that he is not a satanist, despite the satanic art that covers much of his body. Instead, he considers himself a utilitarian, someone who believes that sacrifices must be made to promote the most good for the most beings (human or otherwise). And "sacrifice" is actually the technical term he and others use for killing the mice. The Scientist admits that it is a euphemistic word, but defends it because "from their sacrifice, you gain knowledge."

In his lab, the death comes via carbon dioxide, which is often thought to be the most painless option (though it has critics). Other labs use cervical dislocation--though generally there's a requirement that the animal must be unconscious first.

After the lab, Jeff and The Scientist sit out on a porch drinking beer, discussing the path to becoming a scientist, The Scientist's admiration of Neil Degrasse Tyson, and the beautiful French animated film, Fantastic Planet.

Music: Lucky Dragons, The Black Spot, Flowers

Jeff Emtman wearing his protective garb prior to entering The Scientist's lab.

The Scientist points to the spot where he injects cancer cells into lab mice.

Trailer for "Fantastic Planet" (1973). AKA "La Planète sauvage".

Here Be Monsters

HBM054: Flaming Sword of Truth

HBM050: The Scientist is not the Angel of Death