Spooky Season Podcast Roundup
It’s funny how summer moves along the way it does - hot, long days giving us more time, it seems. And then suddenly, the last week of August hits and there’s that tiny chill in the air - the winds of the West trickling in slowly day by day. Then a week later and summer is over! That’s how it is here anyway, on the Pacific Northwest coastline. It funny too, how I always think I’ll be sad to let summer go, but by the 1st of September I am aaall the way into fall.
Fall is my fav. There’s something about September that feels like New Years day to me. Maybe it’s because we’ve all been programmed for years by the ‘back to school’ schedj. In my town this meant new backpacks, pencils, haircuts. You get to see friends again, start new projects, think new thoughts. And then the weather. This week it rained all week and oh man what a relief - especially these days when everything is burning by August. That rain washes it all down, makes the grass green again and the air feels full of oxygen, shiny and new.
Sweater-weather aside, the nights are also getting longer, the shadows deeper, blacker. The gentle globe spiders appear in their intricate webs daily now, while Looper moths scatter the fields like tiny stars fluttering. There’s a pause in the air, if you can stop to feel it - we are moving towards that time of year when the veils between the worlds get thinner.
Here’s a fun list to get you in the mood. Some of our fav podcasts of all time, made even better during this, the dark half of the year.
Spooked
https://spookedpodcast.org
The grandson of a seer, Spooked host Glynn Washington was born to a family haunted by ghosts. As a teenager, he witnessed his first exorcism — and began the process of whispering back to the shadows plaguing his nighttime. “I grew up feeling the veil between worlds was not as solid as I may have liked.” A student of magic, Glynn has traveled the world in search of the mystic, the strange, and the divine. “I can’t explain everything I’ve seen.” Washington admits. “I keep wondering, what am I missing? That’s really what this show is all about.”
Spooked is interviews with real people telling their personal accounts of things that have happened to them that they cannot explain. Some of these people are believers, others completely not and mind-boggled by their experiences. There’s a lot of ghost stories yes, and a fair-share of spooky dolls and family curses, but also, and my favourite, other stories - about helper spirits and strange creatures, about suddenly finding oneself in another place, not of this world, about getting lost and thankfully getting back to tell the tale.
I love listening to these stories. These are real world accounts of the other side of this existence here on earth - that side that we are told to ignore, denigrate or scoff at and yet, these stories prove that regardless of that - no matter how much we want to pretend otherwise, that side, it exists.
GET STARTED WITH SPOOKED
Here’s a few of my absolute favourite stories from Season 1 to get you started:
Episode 9 ~ "Hot Water" – What’s really out there, waiting for you in the dark? Three college girls went camping in New Mexico to relax. What they found will terrify you.
Episode 7 ~ "A Boy Named Thomas" – Shane Dunphy spent years working with kids as a social worker. He’d seen it all until he met a little boy named Gregory.
Episode 2 ~ "Time Warp Saloon" - The neon sign blinks at the roadhouse bar. The jukebox plays an old tune as the bartender shouts, "Last Call." Just one more. Why not? What could it hurt?
Episode 1 ~ "Voice In The Woods" - When the voice says "Stop" you stay perfectly still. And when the voice says "Run!" you had better run.
Lore
Winner of the iTunes "Best of 2015" & "Best of 2016", and winner of "Best History Podcast 2016" by the Academy of Podcasters.
Lore is an award-winning, critically-acclaimed podcast about true life scary stories. Lore exposes the darker side of history, exploring the creatures, people, and places of our wildest nightmares.
Because sometimes the truth is more frightening than fiction.
Each episode examines a new dark historical tale in a modern campfire experience. With more than 33,500 5-star reviews on Apple Podcasts, and over 320-million listens, that's clearly a good thing.
Lore is so cool. It’s not so much a paranormal podcast but more, a historical account of some of the weirdest, creepiest and most uncanny tales you’ll ever hear. My favourites are the cryptids - those strange creature sightings and interactions that non-one can explain. But there’s much more to this podcast. Many stories are from the 19th century, when Tuberculosis regularly killed thousands of people, when people lived much closer to the land, to folklore and superstition and there were also all kinds of wacky inventions, snake oil and alternative medicines to deal with fear.
Sometimes, host Aaron Mahnke will spotlight a large city and tell a tale of it’s beginnings, it’s progress and underbelly. Or tell a story about major event in history and tell us the part about the high strangeness involved that you don’t hear anywhere else. Kudos to Aaron. His journalism, impressive research skills and gift with storytelling make this an excellent experience to spend some time with.
GET STARTED WITH LORE
Lore has branched out quite a bit and become a universe unto itself. There’s now TV show and a book series to complement the show.
Too many episodes of note for me to recommend a just few - you just a have to pick a season and dig in. So grab a glass of vino while you’re cooking dinner and press play.
Bridgewater
Thoroughly enjoying this new one from same producer Aaron Mahnke. It’s a fictional account of a real place called the Bridgewater Triangle. From Wiki: The Bridgewater Triangle is an area of about 200 square miles within southeastern Massachusetts in the United States, claimed to be a site of alleged paranormal phenomena, ranging from UFOs to poltergeists, orbs, balls of fire and other spectral phenomena, various bigfoot-like sightings, giant snakes and thunderbirds.
The story follows a local professor of folklore who lost his Dad in the woods when he was just a boy. Being a police officer, they thought he’d been murdered by a Satanic cult (of course, I mean what else happens to people in the woods in the States?). But when a hiker finds his badge suddenly after 30 years, the story begins to unravel, along with everything the professor thought he believed in.
It reminds me a lot of old noire radio - lots of fun and a compelling story with bits a pieces from the Lore podcast woven in.
GET STARTED WITH BRIDGEWATER
Only 6 episodes in! You can listen to all of them here https://www.grimandmild.com/bridgewater
Rune Soup
As mentioned in many places in this blog, I love Rune Soup and can’t recommend it enough to folks interested in magic, occulture, shamanism, astrology and all the fucked up world events. Host Gordon White is a scary-smart, funny and generous host with compelling interviews and fantastic guests who leave you with a ton to integrate and lots of sign posts to follow.
This is the way I listen to a Rune Soup episode: blank page with pencil, take notes of anything you hear of interest but also of all of the ‘spirit-talk’ that comes along with it - you know, those nudges, inspirations and sudden memories that bubble to the surface when deep in meditation? It’s like that. Write it all down without editing or reading back on it until the show is over. Each episode is like stepping into a river. Ya gotta let it take you where it will. Masticate later. I’ve learned so much from this show that I became a regular donor when I was listening daily.
GET STARTED WITH RUNE SOUP
From Gordon: On the show and on the blog and in the regular, live, member events and vidcasts, we explore psi, animism, synchronicities, career guidance, culture, art, fortune telling, UFOs, entheogens, After Death research and all that good stuff.
Listening to this guy for years, it’s hard to find the podcasts for me that stuck out the most (literally I can’t find them in the archives) so you have to dive in. Some notable and personal favourite guests include Austin Coppock, Peter Grey, Mitch Horowitz, Charles Eisenstein, Becca Tarnas, Christopher Knowles, Camelia Elias, Langston Khan, Conner Habib, Jenx of the Thai Occult, Gary Lachman, Dean Radin, Corrine Boyer and more. And don’t miss story time with Paul Westin!
A Few More
The Twilight Zone Podcast
http://thetwilightzonepodcast.com
Well, if you loved the show, you’ll love this one. Each show, host Tom Elliot discusses the script, actors, scenes writers and general history of a selected episode of the original Twilight Zone. Full of fun facts, extended scripts and other interesting bits, the episodes are landscaped by the old music and soundbites from the show.
Something about Rod Serling’s voice that takes you to.. well, the Twilight Zone.
Haunted Places
https://www.parcast.com/haunted
You’ve heard of haunted houses, haunted cemeteries, haunted islands...but do you know how a normal place can become paranormal minefield? Every haunted place on earth has a frightening, real backstory. Greg Polcyn (Co-Host of Serial Killers and Cults) takes you on an audio tour of a new haunted place, and it’s haunted history, every Thursday. Spooky legends, weird histories, and tales of the supernatural... Listen at your own risk. Haunted Places is a Spotify Original from Parcast.
This is super fun and scary with a viewer discretion attached. And Greg Polcyn sounds just like a radio DJ selling coca-cola. Something about that juxtaposition works.
Singing Bones
Singing Bones is a podcast that looks at the origin of fairy tales, and how they became the stories we know today.
The little show is no longer but, the cool thing about podcasts is that they also act an an archive and can be listened to again and again. Though amateur and only 18 episodes, I do wish host Clare Testoni had kept it up. I think she really had something here. Not only were her interpretations of some of our favourite fairy tales intriguing, but she has a fantastic voice for fairy tales. And really, a voice can make or break a podcast.
You can find this little gem on Apple Podcasts, or you can listen to her tell stories on her You tube channel (seriously, ASMR much?)
So there you have it - what’s your favourite? I have yet to find a really compelling, interesting and listenable podcast on witchcraft. Love to hear if you have! .. Hmm maybe it’s time to start one.