In the late 1950’s, two high school friends, Greg Hill and Kerry Thornley would regularly meet at their local bowling alley in East Whittier, California to hang out and talk long into the night about the issues of the day and the limits of the world that they lived in – one they felt was based all to willingly on order and control. What if there was a different way of engaging with the world, something more chaotic, unpredictable and fun?

These conversations and an affection for a certain Greek Goddess led them to create the joke religion – or religious joke, depending on your perspective – called Discordianism, which included a text called the Principia Discordia. It’s creation would see Greg and Kerry become entangled with Lee Harvey Oswald and the aftermath the JFK assassination, confuse the authorities with ‘Culture Jamming’ and play a pivotal role in influencing conspiracy theory culture as we know it today.

My guest is paranormal researcher Matt Hopewell, who is an aficionado of Discordianism and it’s prodigiously strange history.This is probably as unusual a Sphere as we’ve explored so far.

Matt's blog is now up and running and can be found here.

For more information on Discordianism, I recommend visiting Adam Gorightly's excellent website 'Historia Discordia'.

In this episode, I discuss Tarot with Elin Heron, who has been a Tarot reader for over twenty years and also hosts regular classes and workshops for people interested in learning more about the cards.

I’m very much a novice myself, and as such, this episode is a beginners guide, discussing the origins of Tarot, it’s evolution from a renaissance card game into an occult resource, the Major and Minor Arcana and how to best start using a Tarot deck for readings. It was a pleasure to talk with Elin and learn more about this fascinating subject.

Click here to visit the Derbyshire Tarot website where you can find Elin's excellent blog and details on the Tarot workshops and classes she teaches.

Elin can also be found on Twitter.

Creswell Crags is a limestone gorge running from east to west on the border of Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire in England. Each side of it peppered with caves and until earlier this year, the site was most famous for spectacular cave art made by hunter gatherers many thousands of years ago.

A recent discovery has added a fascinating aspect to the history of the site however. What was thought to be Victorian graffiti turned out instead to be a vast array of protective marks, or "Witch Marks" dating back to the 17th century. It is thought that people would usually be making these to ward off evil, and prevent malevolent forces gaining access to our world.

My guest for this episode is Alison Fearn, one of the archaeologists involved in deciphering this incredible discovery. We talked about the history of protective marks, why those found at Creswell are so important, and what might have been going on to cause such a remarkable display of superstition.

To find out more about Creswell Crags, you can find their website here.

My guest for this episode is author and host of the Myth Legend and Lore podcast, Siobhán Clark. In her podcast Siobhán discusses a wide range of stories from her native Scotland, which feature a fascinating mix of characters and settings, and date far back into the early history of the nation.

We talked about the storytelling traditions of the people of those times, the cultures they came from, and of course look at some of legends and mythical creatures that have haunted the imaginations of Scots for over a thousand years, perhaps even longer.

I heartily recommend checking out the excellent Myth Legend and Lore podcast, which you can find on Twitter here, as well as on all good Podcast apps.

Siobhán's first novel, “The Children of Midgaard” is available on Amazon here.

My guest for this episode is Shanon Sinn, the author of a book called “The Haunting of Vancouver Island”. He has lived on the Canadian island for over twenty years and in that time has formed a deep, personal connection with the wildlife, landscape and people who live there. His book examines a wide range of supernatural tales, from first nations legends, through the early days of European settlement, and onward into more recent times.

Shanon is an award winning journalist and author, whose life story could be a book in itself. His connection to Vancouver Island gives a real depth to the stories he has featured in the book and make it an excellent read. It was a pleasure to have him on the podcast.

Shanon's website can be found here:

You can find "The Haunting Of Vancouver Island" on Amazon here.

My guest for this episode is Chris Reeve, the creator of a blog called “The Gotobed Diaries”.

The blog details his discovery of the case files of one Doctor Thomas Gotobed, who appears to have been (or still is) some kind of researcher of the occult. The files themselves vary between reports on paranormal incidents and the good doctor’s own thoughts on various theories about the supernatural.

Is Doctor Gotobed real? Well, I’ll let Chris tell you that. What I can say is that we had a really interesting talk about a broad range of supernatural subjects, from Werewolves, to Tulpas, Poltergeists and The Kraken. Enjoy!

The excellent Gotobed Diaries blog can be found here:

My guest for this episode is author and folklore blogger Icy Sedgwick. Icy has written several novels and short stories, many of which involve the supernatural. She is also a keen folklorist, writing a blog on an array of fascinating subjects and regularly contributing to "Folklore Thursday" on Twitter. 

We talked about her interests in the paranormal and writing, how the concept of a haunting varies in the writings of authors such as Charles Dickens, M.R James and Shirley Jackson, the depiction of the supernatural in books and on film and how that can influence theories on unknown phenomena in the "real" world.

Icy's excellent website, where you can find her blog and details on how to get her books can be found here.

For this episode, my guest is comedian and Cryptozoologist Matt Kessen, who combined a lifelong obsession with monsters with his natural funnybones to create the phenomenon that is “ Reverend Matt’s Monster Science” – a regularly updated comedy show he presents that has covered an impressively broad range of subjects, most notable of which is perhaps “What to do in the event of a Dinosaur attack”.

Matt has received praise from no other than Guillermo Del Toro for his work (“You’re my kind of guy!”) , so it was a real privilege to get him on the podcast.

We talked about Dinosaurs, The Devil, Dragons, Kaiju and a whole lot more, it was a great chat. Enjoy!

To find out more about Matt and his work, you can find his website at: https://revmattsmonsterscience.com/

Firstly, Happy New Year!

My guest for this episode is Madra Banrion, who discusses her experiences with Ancestor Veneration and Animism.

Going into the recording, I only new the basics about these subjects but Madra was an excellent guest and led a really interesting conversation about these practices, which at first might seem esoteric but in reality, are probably something we already have at least a little experience of in our everyday lives.

Madra's excellent website is: https://madrabanrion.com/

Her article about Ancestor Veneration on the Plentiful Earth website is definitely worth a read and can be found here: https://plentifulearth.com/what-is-ancestor-veneration/

Enjoy!

My guest for this episode is Andy McGrath, a UK based Cryptozoologist with over 25 years of research experience investigating reports of unknown creatures living right under our noses here in the British Isles.

He's the author of an excellent blog called "Beasts of Britain", has brought out a book of the same name and is now working on a TV series. He's also spoken at events such as CryptidCon and the International Cryptozoology Conference.

We talked about how his interest in Cryptozoology started and discussed some of his favourite investigations in the UK, which include a creature in Lake Windermere (Bownessie), Bigfoot reports in Surrey and Staffordshire and a very odd, very large winged thing seen late at night in a Scottish Graveyard...

LINKS:

Andy's Beasts of Britain blog can be found here: http://beastsofbritain.blogspot.com/2018/

The Beasts of Britain book: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Beasts-Britain-Andrew-M-L-McGrath/dp/1549938983

The BoB post on Bownessie: http://beastsofbritain.blogspot.com/2017/02/

The BoB post on "The Black Country Stalker": http://beastsofbritain.blogspot.com/2018/07/