This TED Talk features writer, radio host, and comedian Carrie Poppy, recorded live at TEDx Vienna, 2016.

Eight years ago, I was haunted by an evil spirit. I was 25 at the time, and I was living in a tiny house

behind someone else's house in Los Angeles. It's this guest house. It had kind of been dilapidated, not taking care of for a long time.

And one night I was sitting there, and I got this really spooky feeling.

Kind of feeling like you're being watched, but no one was there except my two dogs, and they were just chewing their feet.

And I looked around, no one was there, and I thought, okay, this is just my imagination.

But the feeling just kept getting worse, and I started 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 got worse and worse. And I started to become convinced that something was there

in my little guest house haunting me. And I started to hear these sounds, this whoosh, kind of whisper,

like something passing through me. And I called my best friend, Claire,

and I said, I know this is going to sound crazy. But I think there's a ghost in my house. I need to

get rid of it.

And she said, she's very open-minded.

And she said, I don't think you're crazy.

I think you just need to do a cleansing ritual.

So get some sage and burn it and tell it to go away.

So I said, okay.

And I went and I bought sage, and I had never done this before.

So set the sage on fire, waved it about and said, go away.

This is my house. I live here. You don't live here. But the feeling stayed. Nothing got better. And then I started to think, okay, well, now this thing is probably

just laughing at me because, you know, it hasn't left. And I probably just looked like this impotent, powerless thing

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